Strong voice

The generally high opinion of the US in this country reinforces your voice.

And we try to use that voice in constructive ways. I have often said that being a friend doesn’t always mean saying what people want to hear, it means saying what needs to be said. I believe that quite fervently. We have often been in a situation where we have had to point to areas where more needs to be done, and try to partner together to help that happen. And in the context of the election, we were very sorry to see the reports of vote-buying in the European Parliament election, and I will tell you and will tell others quite candidly that we think that there is no place for that. It really is quite deplorable. There is no place for that in Bulgaria, there is no place for that in a democracy.

The attitude of the US business community, which translates as, is the rate of whingeing going up or going down, constant?

(Laughs) That’s a technical term, whingeing? The American community finds Bulgaria pretty attractive. The 10 per cent corporate and personal tax rate is quite an asset, this is quite a well-educated labour force and this is also an attractive geographic location. So it is no accident that an American company, the energy firm AES, is the largest single foreign investor in Bulgaria, but it also explains why we are in the top 10 overall list of foreign investors. People are here because they want to be here and they see it in their interests to be here.

That said, there are difficulties to doing business and the global economic crisis, in my judgment, makes it even more imperative that the Bulgarian authorities take steps to make this country the absolute most attractive place to do business that it possibly can. There are a couple of steps to that. I think that the Bulgarian authorities need to, in the first instance, take very good care of the companies already here. I am not talking about serving them coffee, I am talking about resolving the problems that the companies that are facing, whether simply unnecessary bureaucratic delays or whether it is illegitimate attempts to drive them in one direction or another.

The Government needs to resolve the problems that American companies have been facing so that these companies then become Bulgaria’s ambassadors to the rest of the economy community and can tell what a great story has been underway here. But I think that Bulgaria needs to do even more than that. What I have advocated is for the economic strategists, and it will now fall to the next government to do this, is to say, how we can make ourselves a magnet? How can we make Bulgaria – they refer to themselves as a little country but this actually isn’t a little country, it is a medium-sized country – more dynamic, more exciting, an economic engine, a magnet. It can be done.

This is not something that is impossible to achieve. In addition to the very attractive tax rates, there are packages of incentives that the government could put forward, from procedural to financial incentives, that would draw foreign investors, that would create jobs, but there are also things that could be done, to return to the IT field as one example, where Bulgaria could set itself up as a place where people with new ideas who want to start a new business, a new life, could say, hey, they’re trying to draw talent, to create innovation there – let’s go there.

I know that you’ve seen the coverage but we started a public-private partnership here at the embassy with some government monies that we had, and have drawn in what I think will end up being considerable corporate support, to launch IT startups, IT incubators. We were quite excited and very happy that we got the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales, to come here and help us launch that. We did it because we thought it was a way to spur economic activity, to do what I talked about, leapfrog over some of the old problems and some of the developments that people think are standing in their way, but we also did it because we believed that greater use of the internet, greater penetration of computer use and computer ownership would also drive not just dynamism but transparency. So it is a double-triple-quadruple run, if we’re able to pull it off and make it successful.

Another issue that I know is important to you is people with disabilities.

I believe in this issue very much in terms of providing access and I use the term access quite broadly, it means physical access, it means access to services, access to rights and freedoms, and access to the ability to make contribution. I think that’s a really, really key point, not just for the – we’re all a bit uncomfortable with the term ‘disabled community’ because I think it’s bit of a misnomer – but it’s important for all society because people always think it’s an issue of compassion, and I do think it’s important to be compassionate, but I think that as a government official and as a citizen, when you look at how you’re going to best meet the needs of your society and call out the talents of your population, you have to look everywhere, whether it is someone who is sitting in a wheelchair or someone who was raised in an orphanage, who happens to be of Roma ethnicity or Turkish ethnicity, whatever your background is, government and society needs to maximise what it gets from every quarter and to bring out the best of the talent.

What is actually like, as an individual to be an American in Bulgaria?

I don’t want to be facetious but I’ll you, it’s great. It’s great to be an American in Bulgaria. It is great because this is a country and these are people who are very open, and very welcoming of Americans, of American culture, and so it is a place that has a positive and warm approach to both official Americans and private Americans but it is also great because it is a place that needs and wants American assistance, American advice, American co-operation and support.

So when you look at what makes work meaningful, what makes life meaningful, is doing important things, making a positive contribution, helping make a place on this planet of ours better for the people who inhabit it, I know that, and I can share with you, it’s not just American embassy does a lot of things that are intended to be good, and there are some things that the US government has done here that I am very proud of, that have touched people’s lives in real ways.

I would mention institutions like the American University in Bulgaria in Blagoevgrad, the American College of Sofia, as well as the Anglo-American School which is slightly different but I would still put it in that category; these are institutions that are the premier educational institutions in this country, that we set up to help Bulgaria and help Bulgarians, and really is touching their lives. We also have the Peace Corps, which does incredibly important things.

But also, the Americans who are here, whether as diplomats or businessmen or NGOs, bring with them an American mindset and outlook that has touched the people in their personal lives, and whether it is Americans playing American football, or doing volunteer projects like cleaning up garbage in South Park – you know, the American Chamber of Commerce partnered with us, we did a Volunteer Day, got over 1000 people all across the country, doing all kinds of things, painting park benches, repairing senior citizens’ homes. We have here, this is just a very informal, very private thing, this embassy supports an orphanage; and we don’t do it as an embassy, we do it as people.

It’s Americans, it’s Bulgarians. It’s an hour and half away. They go on a regular basis. We’re raised thousands of dollars. It’s not the money that’s the most important thing, it’s the time. These are people who volunteer and go out there, and it’s the most simple thing, they play with the kids, they hug them. They change their lives forever. And those are the things that we individuals will remember. There is a very large institutional legacy that a lot of people can be proud of but there is also a very important personal one.

…I had not lived in this country before. I spent a lot of time reading about the history of this country. When I first arrived, spent a lot of time travelling around, to learn and to listen and to see what made the people tick. I do believe that different people think in different ways and look at the world in different ways, and until you’ve walked in their shoes and tried to look out through their eyes, you can’t really understand how a place works.

I won’t say there were a things that surprised me but there were lots of things that delighted me, and there were a lot of things that I enjoyed doing – I really, really loved the hiking. We were just last weekend up in the Rila lakes, which is stunning. The principal thing that I come back are the people. What I have found striking and wonderful is the extent to which the Bulgarian people, and I use this word intentionally, have experienced great difficulty, suffered through a lot over many decades and maintained an incredibly wry and warm sense of humour and a sense of perspective.

…It’s a been great year. It’s been a fun and fascinating and rewarding year for me. And as I leave, and I told you I was frustrated and impatient about corruption, and I’m impatient for all the right reasons, in wanting good progress, but I don’t leave pessimistic. I leave confident that the right things can and will happen here, but there is a great deal of hard work to be done.