In a wide-ranging interview, US ambassador to Bulgaria Nancy McEldowney outlined the dynamics between Washington and Sofia on key foreign policy and domestic issues and, on the eve of Independence Day 2009, spoke of what it means to be an American in Bulgaria.

On foreign policy, a strong relationship has developed: "We co-ordinate on a bilateral basis our policy throughout the region," McEldowney says.

This includes the Western Balkans – the Balkan peninsula – which she confirms to be an area of attention and continuing concern, underscored by the visit in May 2009 by US vice president Joe Biden, a signal of the seriousness that the region enjoys in the priorities in president Barack Obama’s administration.

"We have found our partnership with Bulgaria in this regard to be extremely helpful and extremely productive for both of us. Bulgaria is a country that is in the Balkans and of the Balkans, but yet doesn’t suffer in the way that many of the countries do, from more existential problems."

There are many examples of co-operation between the two countries, as Nato allies in Bosnia and Kosovo, among them. Significantly, however, there is a shared commitment to the longer-term process of facilitating the integration of Balkans countries into institutions that would help long-term stability, institutions such as Nato, the EU, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the Council of Europe.

This is tied to what McEldowney describes as a process of political dialogue and the sharing of a strategic vision that allows politicians and ordinary people to get from their current difficulties to a future that addresses their problems in important ways.

Of the foreign policy relationship, she says: "We look at Bulgaria as a country that is responsible, that is dependable, that has genuinely partnered with us".

Washington looks to Bulgaria to be a force for stability and responsibility throughout the region.

"As friends and partners, as treaty allies and people who talk on a daily basis about the things that matter to us, to both of our sides, we do have a busy agenda of things that we’re working on," McEldowney says.

"It relates to everything, from Somali pirates, to stability of the Black Sea region, to how we as an alliance in the Euro Atlantic community are going to deal with the Taliban in Afghanistan, how we are going to create stability throughout south Asia, to what’s happening across the European continent, and that’s everything from the energy issues that we talked about previously, Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union, and creating stability and fostering democracy there, to dealing with the problems of continued transition in Central and Eastern Europe and the problems of the economic crisis on the globe overall. That is a kind of a summary, if you asked me my day, my week, that’s it."

A key question in the bilateral relationship is energy, and McEldowney says that this question is approached in the context that Washington sees energy security and diversity as an issue relevant to the whole continent.

Since the January 2009 cutoff of natural gas supplies, which she describes as "a real wake-up call", the US and Bulgaria have been in dialogue on the need to address domestic usage, storage and access, along with technical issues that as a totality with these factors could open the way to a solution.

"We have also been very supportive of Bulgaria’s efforts to transform certain aspects of how energy is dealt with here. One is the Bulgarian Government’s desire to do away with the ‘intermediary companies’ that are registered offshore, often impenetrable, difficult to deal with. We believe that if Lukoil, Gazprom, any other company is going to do business here, they should do it in a straightforward and forthright manner that has both clarity and accountability associated with it.

"And then, of course, we have talked about the need for diversity, not just of routes but also of supply, because Bulgaria is in a situation now where it receives 70 per cent of its total energy supplies and more than 90 per cent of its natural gas supplies from a single monopoly supplier. You don’t have to be a genius or a rocket scientist to understand that creates vulnerabilities. People often ask me, am I pro-Nabucco and anti-South Stream, and the answer that I give publicly and privately is that I am pro Bulgarian interests and what Bulgaria needs to do is figure out where is the most reliable, the most transparent, the most commercially viable course and to combine those three factors in evaluating different projects. But one thing I would mention here before going to renewables: we have worked together with the Bulgarian Government especially on the area of transparency."