Nearly a month after Kosovo proclaimed its independence, Bulgaria continues to procrastinate over its stance on the new Balkan realities.

In an effort to please Western partners and still preserve good neighbourly relations with Serbia, Bulgaria has set out on a path that will lead to failing at both. 
Although Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin said he would recommend that the Government recognise Kosovo’s secession, Bulgaria’s ruling coalition has avoided initiating Parliament debates on adopting a motion to this effect.

Opposition parties have criticised Bulgaria’s ambiguous stance.

Former ambassadors from Bulgaria’s Foreign Policy Association said on March 5 the “wait and see” tactic adopted by the Bulgarian Cabinet was detrimental in the long run. Bulgaria’s wavering position on recognising Kosovo’s independence from Belgrade did nothing else but harm to the country’s interests, they said, pointing out that Bulgaria had the potential to be a stabilising factor in the Balkans, which it only wasted by failing to come out with a tangible position.

“Bulgaria’s official foreign policy was not making a good investment in its future,” association chairman and former ambassador to Japan and the Philippines, Petar Andonov, told reporters at a news conference, referring to a declaration by Bulgaria’s Foreign Policy Association shortly after Kosovo declared independence. Andonov said that European Union and Nato membership was not only a privilege, but a duty as well and said Bulgaria could only lose from running away from an active stand. 

Former ambassadors to Balkan countries were a lot more critical, however. The current policy resembled the communist-era habit of laying low when facing the unknown, former Bulgarian ambassador to Macedonia, Angel Dimitrov, said. “Ambiguity can be interpreted as either double standards or indecisiveness,” he said, commenting that Bulgaria should not only follow common decisions, but should propose decisions of its own.

The former ambassador to Albania, Bobi Bobev, berated the Cabinet of Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev for not taking a more active role in finding a solution. “Bulgaria is still behaving as a EU candidate country, rather than a member state, referring to the EU in the third person,” he said. Yani Milchakov, former Bulgarian ambassador to Serbia and Montenegro, said the main ordeal facing Bulgarian diplomacy was whether it could achieve handling the Kosovo issue separately from “all other relations with Serbia, which are logical between two neighbouring countries”.

As of March 11, a total of 27 countries had recognised Kosovo, most recently Finland on March 7, and two more have launched recognition procedures, according to kosovothanksyou.com website, which is tracking the process. A further 22 countries, including Bulgaria, are expected to follow suit. Kosovo has formally been recognised by 16 out of 27 EU member states and by 15 out of 26 Nato member states, kosovothanksyou.com said.

It is true that criticising is easy. It is also true the Kosovo case is a big challenge before Bulgarian diplomacy. Still, no problem has ever been solved by simply repeatedly postponing a solution. If Bulgaria truly wants to be considered a serious player on the Balkans, it needs to have a more active position on all regional issues.