Tag: Dual Standards in the European Union

Manfred Weber and Bulgaria: Is There a Dual Standard on the Rule of Law?

.Reading time 14 minutes.

Manfred Weber is a changed man. In May 2018, he warned that people should not “point fingers” at Orban who was not a “bad European.” After months of turning his eyes away from the Hungarian rule of law crisis, on the day of the vote on the activation of Article 7(1) of the Treaty on the European Union against Hungary (12 September 2018), he did a 180 degree turn. ‘Today I will vote in favour of triggering #Article7. I have always been in favour of building bridges and I want to continue to do so but yesterday I didn’t see any readiness from the Hungarian PM to make a move towards his EU partners and address our concerns. #Hungary,” he posted on Twitter. Four days later, Financial Times reported he was already concerned not only about Hungary, but also about Poland, Romania, and possibly other countries.

If you follow my blog, however, you probably know that Bulgaria’s democracy and rule of law are in a critical condition (if you do not, consider reading, for instance,  All You Need to Know About Bulgaria’s Rule of Law in 10 Charts). So, while I appreciate the evolution of Weber’s views, I am troubled that he did not mention Bulgaria as a country he is worried about. Manfred Weber is running for President of the European Commission, so his opinion, fickle as it may be, can have huge consequences for the rule of law debate, which will surely continue to haunt EU institutions.

Is there something I am missing from the big picture? I carried out a Twitter survey to find out how Weber’s awkward silence on Bulgaria could be explained.

Shall we see what the survey found?

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Why Do EU Politicians Avoid Discussing Bulgaria’s Rampant Corruption and Lack of Rule of Law? Dissecting the Silence!

.Reading time 12 minutes.

As a scholar with a research interest in the rule of law and as a Bulgarian citizen, I have been asking this question for a long time. For the sake of giving credit where credit is due, it is worth mentioning that the European Greens tried to raise concern about Bulgaria’s rampant corruption at the start of Bulgaria’s Presidency of the Council of the EU in January 2018 by publishing a critical report and by directly confronting Bulgaria’s Prime Minister on the matter at the European Parliament. However, they have progressively quieted down.

To be fair, the Greens are not in a position to do much either. Yet, what about the EPP, the Progressives or ALDE which is known for its motto “Values First”? These are the three largest groups at the European Parliament and all of them have members from Bulgaria.

At the end of August 2018, I carried out an improvised Twitter survey to see if my followers shared my worries (Figure 1). 36 people voted and 2 users who missed the deadline to cast their vote sent me separate comments, as we will see below.

So let’s see what the survey found?

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My First Vlog Post: “The Rise of Modern Dictatorships and EU’s Dual Standards”

.Reading time 3 minutes.

When I launched radosvetavassileva.blog two months ago, I ended my first blog post with the following words: “The whole world will learn about the crimes Bulgaria’s mafia has committed and the whole world will be watching its imminent demise! The lights are on!”. I am very happy to share that my blog has already more than 14 000 viewers. I really want to thank my readers for their interest in my point of view. I also want to thank everyone who signed my petition in support of my father’s application under the US Magnitsky Act. Many thanks to those who follow my family on Twitter too! If you have not done so, you can find us @Radosveta_vass, @AnVassileva, @TzvetVassilev.

As one famous quote, which is often attributed to Abraham Lincoln, goes: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” No matter how hard some people try to suffocate the truth, it will come out. Read More