To the citizens of EDEN

Day 1,581, 20:56 • Published in Bulgaria Bulgaria • by Papen83

Today I saw a comment in the Greek press claiming that “Bulgaria caused the biggest and longest crisis in EDEN’s history” and many other comments trying to undermine the decision of EDEN to finally terminate the trial status of Turkey.

I guess many people formed their opinion only based on a log they saw from the last EDEN summit. And in my opinion this changed the focus from the real problem. I will try to compensate for this gap as I am the vMoFA of Bulgaria. You will then decide for yourself who is to blame.

Let me start with the origin of this crisis. The crisis was generated by these member states in EDEN who decided to not respect the Bulgarian veto for Turkey and invented the idiotic concept of "permanent TRIAL member" in order to avoid the veto that the Bulgarian people expressed in a referendum! I am sure that most of the citizens in EDEN understand perfectly that no alliance can endure long enough if any of its members cannot use its right to veto new candidates. I tried to explain this in an open letter to the Greek citizens some 15 days ago. I will summarize it here again:

Imagine EU and NATO in Real Life and there you have USA or Germany telling the Greeks - "You guys MUST forget about your right of VETO! We will accept the Republic of Macedonia in our alliance and we do not want to hear a thing about your feelings and your name dispute with this country!".

Do you believe that if this happens such an alliance will keep existing?? Will you like this attitude from your allies? THINK! Look at yourself first and then judge on the others. So the first thing that you miss is the fact that all problems would be avoided if EDEN was to respect the most important rule in any alliance – if there is a veto by any member for the entrance of another country – this country should not be allowed to stay any longer in the structures of the union. It is there in the EDEN Treaty but nevertheless we got penalized instead and our rights were even limited for a while 10 days ago.

And here comes the second issue – Bulgaria actually was the first to make a step back and proposed a compromise. Under these circumstances most states would play the role of an angry kid and leave right away if EDEN meant nothing to them – but we kept fighting for our right to stay. First we hold another referendum to show that EDEN is still supported by the Bulgarian population. Then in order to make everybody happy again we offered Turkey direct membership in GEA. GEA is actually the official door to EDEN membership. It was an official decision to recognize the Turkish trial status despite of the veto referendum. It was an act in which the Bulgarian government made the biggest possible compromise – the one with its people’s public opinion! Even though as a result of the veto referendum we were working for months to terminate the Turkish trial, we decided to stop insisting on it. Turkey was just supposed to show a sign of good faith as well. So in return we asked for two regions that Turkey does not need at all - neither core, nor resource-giving (like most of the 30+ regions that Turkey has)! These regions would boost our economy and for Turkey they are useless. EDEN (both high officials and several country presidents) also promised that if we do this compromise and Turkey rejects it – then Turkish trial will be terminated. What did the Turks do? They rejected the offer! EDEN kept its promise and that is the end of story.

I am sorry that in the logs that you read the accent is not focused enough on these two points that are practically the reasons for the solution of this conflict. But I can assure you that all of this is true and I can prove it all with logs as well.

So please do not put the blame on Bulgaria. None of this would have happened if Turkish trial status was terminated right after the VETO coming from our referendum, or if the Turkish side was to agree to the compromise of giving nothing to get its trial status recognized by Bulgaria. All of these efforts were done by us – and EDEN finally showed the respect that its full member deserve. Sadly it all went too far to the point in which already EDEN had simply to choose Bulgaria or Turkey. Something it probably had to do 2 months ago. I am sure that if you are aware of these facts now – you will understand and respect the termination of the Turkish trial as well.

Thank you for your attention,

Papen83
vMoFA of Bulgarian government