Ever since the United States announced two years ago a big shakeup in its military presence in Europe, Bulgaria has been among the countries most eagerly lobbying for the stationing of US troops on its territory. These are the words of BBC's South East Europe analyst Gabriel Partos.

Now that it has them, or at least what Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin called the priori agreement settling the terms between the two countries, what it is missing is public debate on the issue. And that seems to be hard to rouse.

Bulgarians, who ordinarily passionately opine, seem to have been unable to do so about the joint US-Bulgarian military bases. Either that, or else the 54 per cent of the population devoid from an end-April public opinion survey ordered by the private Darik radio has somehow missed the whole affair.

The survey showed 26 per cent of Bulgarians to be categorically against the existence of joint military installations, and 20 per cent to think that such would be economically useful to the country. Nothing was said about the remaining 54 percent. A parallel Darik survey showed that all of this happened against the backdrop of a Government hanging on a precariously thin nine per cent of overall public approval.

The Sofia Echo's unofficial opinion probe showed more or less the same results, while also showing what seem to be the thoughts of the silent 54s: "What does my opinion matter? Whatever it is, they will still go on and install the bases", a couple of people responded, almost mimicking each other.

Thirty-year-old IT specialist Dobromir described the situation a bit more loquaciously: "The problem is that nobody gave all the details on the contract for the bases. All remained veiled in mystery as usual. I haven't thought deeply and formed an opinion; so my opinion is contradictory. I believe that for such global issues like foreign bases, membership in NATO or the EU there had to be a referendum, but..."; "if information is provided," a 68-year-old woman told The Sofia Echo, as if to complete Dobromir's ellipsis.

She was speaking to The Echo a day after he. We prodded her to say if she was at least critical about the lack of information: "Of course I think that there should be information," she said, but she wouldn't protest against its lack because she is "beyond the age".

The age barrier did not seem to exist for many 68-year-olds who made up a huge part of the ultra-nationalist Ataka march against the US bases, a rather clamorous event at that. Some 600 protesters gathered at Sofia's Yuzhen Park to hear the inflamed speech of Ataka leader Volen Siderov, and later bred into a mass of 1500 who fought with and tried to break a 3000-man strong police blockade trying to inhibit their march to the National Palace of Culture (NDK) and the NATO ministerial with batons, helmets, shields and water tanks.

Surprisingly, the next day Reuters, Romanian and Lebanese media reported of 3000, and even 5000 Bulgarian protesters on the streets. Probably because they were used to the couple of thousand Greek and Turkish anti-US protesters that had swarmed the streets of the two countries the previous three days when US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice went to visit.
Reuters and colleagues, however, didn't miss the truth that much: it was not that the 2000-3000 protesters did not exist: they just held their opinions rather silently, or not at all.

Twenty-six-year old Vessela, for example, told The Sofia Echo that she was categorically against joint bases in Bulgaria, but that she did not want to get involved with political issues, nor did she think that Ataka defended Bulgaria's national interests. Ataka was the only party organising anti-US and anti-NATO protests. When asked to comment why Bulgarians would not go out and protest even if they were anti-US, she said that Bulgarian civil society is "still in some embryonic state. It is not on a level that will allow it to organise a protest".

She was right. Her opinion was more or less proven by the act of three Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), one Ataka and two independent MPs, along with three intellectuals, who sent a letter to President Georgi Purvanov protesting the establishment of foreign military bases and asking for the initiation of parliamentary talks on a referendum on the day when Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin and Rice signed the agreement.

When asked to argue what seemed to be a horribly late decision, BSP signatory Kostadin Paskalev told Focus News Agency (FNA) that a referendum, even late, would "at least give publicity to this agreement. At the moment, there is no clarity on what the engagements are", he said. Stella Bankova, an independent MP and signatory, told FNA that their decision was a continuation of the position of five MPs in the previous (the 39th) Parliament, which had failed to instigate much debate. According to the present legislature, she said, only the president, Parliament or 60 MPs could initiate a referendum.

"Sixty MPs would not gather behind this," she said.

The only thing the initiative reaped was public discussion on whether BSP would split under the weigh of internal debate as to whether or not the joint US-Bulgaria military installments hurt Bulgaria's national interests. So far, the debate hasn't yielded much fruit and, as a 48-year old supporter of the joint bases said, even if it did, and people's opinions were heard, it wouldn't matter.

"At the backdrop of all this lawlessness, a referendum would be just as uselsess as all else," he said. "But I am princiaply for the referendum, because it would add another brushstroke to the picture of what people think."

His words, along with those of Paskalev, underlined the obscure and shady way in which US-Bulgarian negotiations happened, as well as the lack of serious public debate on the issue.

When negotiations between the American and Bulgarian teams ended in late March, the hot discussion topic was whether the joint bases might be used to attack third countries, most specifically the possibly atomic power-prone Iran. The answer had always been that even if a similar situation arose, and it still hasn't, the framework agreement (which the Council of Ministers approved on April 20) would provide that Bulgaria's position be taken into consideration. Eventual negotiations would then be led through the US Embassy in Sofia, NATO Permanent Representative of Bulgaria Lyubomir Ivanov told a press conference.

However, weeks after his statement, on April 24, Radio France Internationale reported that a new US defence plan approved by US secretary of defence Donald Rumsfeld allowed the Pentagon to only inform an American ambassador about a certain country, instead of ask his or her permission, when deciding on military operations against Middle East countries.

When The Sofia Echo contacted the US Embassy and the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry to clarify what seemed to be a newly arisen contradiction, the first ducked the question, and the latter has still not responded.

Thus, while the US Embassy and the Bulgarian Foreign Ministry do their jobs, Bulgarian public opinion calmly undulates below the surface.

On the day when The Sofia Echo was conducting the street interviews, fighter jets flew in the sky. A trader of antiques at Alexander Nevski Cathedral thought them to be American and said: "We watch them, we admire them".  Valentin, 25, also thought the aircraft were American, but was rather disgruntled to see them, and so was his girlfriend: "We have become like Kosovo and Iraq", she said.
The aircraft were actually not American, but Bulgarian, and were training for a May 6 air show.