"След един час, прекаран с българския премиер Бойко Борисов, се уверих, че политическата кариера на Балканите не е работа за хора със слаби сърца". Това пишежурналистът Тони Барбър в блога на "Файненшъл таймс" след интервюто, което бе публикувано в днешния брой на лондонското издание.
„Борисов е едрогърд бивш началник на полицията и телохранител с черен пояс по карате. Силата на ръкостискането му е достатъчна, за да внуши доверие в безспорната му власт, както и да те накара да осъзнаеш, че ако те стисне по-силно, определено може да ти причини болка", така той описва премиерът на България. Заглавието на анализа пък е "Черен колан и българска политика".
Барбър разказва, че премиерът е "перфектен домакин, сервиращ чай и кафе в просторния си, но все пак без прекалена грандиозност, офис в центъра на София". Борисов разгорещено твърдял, че благодарение на правителството му България е "остров на стабилността" на Балканите. "Признава, че корупцията не е преборена, но и призовава да се даде повече време, защото България е "млада демокрация", преминала през 45 години комунизъм и две бурни десетилетия на политически плурализъм и свободен пазар", пише още Тони Барбър.
Двамата с Борисов се разходили из кабинета му и журналистът забелязал две книги от Силвио Берлускони, едната от тях - с личен подпис. Барбър посочва, че преди интервюто български политик от опозицията сравнил Борисов с Берлускони - и двамата били популисти и денонощно държали да контролират образа си в медиите.
"Така че попитах Борисов: "Харесвате ли Берлускони?" Той отвърна твърдо "Не!" След това ми показа снимка на стената, на която е с германския канцлер Ангела Меркел. "Ето от кого се възхищавам. Фантастична жена, върши страхотна работа в еврокризата". Това откровено ли го казвате? - Да, абсолютно."
Тони Барбър описва на читателите си, че макар да е най-бедната държава в ЕС, България се опитва да следва същите строги фискални стандарти, каквито поддържа Германия. "Борисов стои зад думите си и когато ми казва, че България се радва на пълна свобода на словото и на напълно независимо правосъдие."
Журналистът привършва разказа си с разходката по софийските улици и как е попаднал на мястото, където през 1895 г. убийци накълцали премиера Стефан Стамболов. "Наблизо е голям модерен бюст на Стамболов с дълбоко разцепена глава, илюстрираща ужасния му край. Както казах, тази работа не е за хора със слаби сърца."
Black belts and Bulgarian politics
November 20, 2012 3:11 pm by Tony Barber
After spending an hour today with Boyko Borisov, Bulgaria’s prime minister, I am more convinced than ever that a political career in the Balkans is not for the faint-hearted.
Borisov is a barrel-chested former police chief and bodyguard who holds a black belt in karate. The grip of his handshake is strong enough to convey the confidence of undisputed power and to make you realise that, if it were just a little tighter, you would experience measurable pain.
Borisov is the perfect host, serving tea and coffee in his spacious but not overly-grand offices in central Sofia. He vigorously defends his centre-right government’s record in maintaining Bulgaria as “an island of financial stability” in the troubled Balkan region (Greece to the south, Romania to the north, Serbia to the west). He acknowledges that corruption has not been conquered, but asks for time because Bulgaria is “a young democracy” that lived through 45 years of communism and then a turbulent two decades of transition to political pluralism and the free market.
I notice that Borisov’s collection of mementoes include two books from Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian premier – one containing Berlusconi’s personal signature. In a conversation with me earlier this morning, a Bulgarian opposition politician compared Borisov with Berlusconi, citing their common populism and non-stop determination to control their media image.
So I ask Borisov, “Do you admire Berlusconi?” He replies firmly: “No.”
Then he leads me across the room to a wall where a photograph is displayed of himself in the company of Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor. “This is who I admire,” he said. “Fantastic woman, doing a great job in the euro crisis.”
Is he being sincere? Yes, absolutely. As the leader of the European Union’s least well-off nation, but one which is trying to adhere to the same rigorous fiscal standards upheld by Germany, Borisov means what he says. Then again, he also means what he says when he tells me that Bulgaria enjoys complete freedom of expression and a fully independent judiciary.
A few minutes after saying goodbye to Borisov, I cross Sofia’s main boulevard and reach the spot where Stefan Stambolov, one of his predecessors as prime minister, was chopped to death in 1895 by a pair of knife-wielding assassins. Nearby there is a large modern bust of Stambolov with a deep split in his skull to represent his horrible end.
Like I say, not for the faint-hearted.
Borisov defends pipeline deal with Russia
Bulgaria’s prime minister has defended his country’s agreement with Russia to build the controversial €16bn South Stream gas pipeline across his country, saying it has better prospects than a Brussels-backed rival plan and will benefit Europe.
Boyko Borisov said no state money would go into the Bulgarian sector of the pipeline to bring Russian gas under the Black Sea and through the Balkans, which would be project-financed and receive no state guarantee from Sofia.
“It will create jobs in Bulgaria,” Mr Borisov told the FT. “The next [government] will collect transit fees [on gas transported through the pipeline] and will be able to pay higher pensions and build museums and sports stadiums.”
Bulgaria last week became the final Balkans state to reach agreement with Russia on South Stream, which allowed Gazprom and its consortium partners to take a final investment decision on the project. Sofia also received a 20 per cent price discount on a new, six-year gas supply contract from Gazprom, starting in January.
Gazprom and the other shareholders – Italy’s Eni, Germany’s Wintershall and France’s EDF – will begin construction on the Black Sea section of the pipeline on December 7.
But the agreements come at a sensitive time. The European Commission in September opened an antitrust probe into whether Gazprom was abusing its dominant position in eastern European markets. Brussels officials have said that probe will examine whether Gazprom linked offers of cheaper gas for countries such as Bulgaria to participation in South Stream.
Mr Borisov was once a private security guard, whose clients included the former communist leader Todor Zhivkov, and later mayor of Sofia. As premier since 2009, he has steered carefully between the EU, which Bulgaria joined in 2007, and Russia, with which it has strong cultural links.
Mr Borisov denied media reports that Bulgaria would take no transit fees from South Stream for up to 15 years, to pay for its share of construction of the Bulgarian section. He expressed surprise at questions on whether the project would be viable given flagging gas demand growth and proliferating supply sources following the shale gas boom in North America.
Such questions, he said, might instead apply to Nabucco – the EU-backed project to bring gas from the Caspian basin via the Caucasus, which Mr Borisov said had been Bulgaria’s “top priority”.
“But tens of millions of euros were spent on Nabucco so far, to administer it, and still we don’t know the source of gas for the pipeline,” he said.
Nabucco has been scaled back to a shorter project, Nabucco West, that would take gas from the Turkish-European border into central Europe. The leading contender to bring Caspian gas to that point is now the planned Trans-Anatolian Pipeline between Turkey and Azerbaijan.
But Mr Borisov warned that while the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, the mostly Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan, was unresolved, any transit pipeline through Azerbaijan would not be secure.
He added that as prime minister he had already cancelled two Russian-backed “grand projects”. These were the Burgas-Alexandroupolis oil pipeline to carry Russian and Caspian oil from the Black Sea to the Greek Aegean, on environmental grounds, and the Belene nuclear power plant in Bulgaria, because of cost.
“Give me the name of any prime minister in the world who has cancelled two projects out of three with Moscow,” said Mr Borisov.
“I would have asked the question, how did this government find the political will to grant a concession on the Black Sea, where we know there are gas and oil deposits,” he continued, “not to a Russian company, but to a consortium of three major European companies – Total, OMV and Repsol?”
Mr Borisov said that and other Black Sea projects would enable Bulgaria within six years to meet its own gas needs.
“That is why in our [new] contract with Moscow we put text saying we will buy gas from Russia for [only] six years,” the Bulgarian premier added.
“We deserve to be congratulated on that. It is not easy for a small country like ours, in the Balkans, and where the influence of the Russian community is huge, to cancel two of the three major projects, and to opt for real diversification.”
