OLD EUROPE REARS ITS UGLY HEAD

In 2003, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defense Secretary under George Bush, angered the French and Germans when he referred to “Old Europe.” Yet, there is another Older Europe with a retrograde history that is making a return.
That was evident on January 12 in Brussels when those who long for the primitive coldness of communism were presented with an opportunity to display their atavism during hearings to confirm Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister, Rumiana Jeleva, as an EU Commissioner. Their behavior took the form of an unseemly, vicious attack on Mrs. Jeleva in front of live television cameras that transmitted the event across the globe. What occurred was a nasty charade intended to embarrass and derail Mrs. Jeleva’s candidacy. Behind it was the long hand of the Bulgarian Old Guard, now masquerading as a socialist party - people who find comfort in like-minded ideologues in Russia and among the so-called liberal Left in EU member states like Germany and Holland.
The verbal attacks on Mrs. Jeleva bore the hallmark of a well- orchestrated, bitter strategy, which held Bulgaria up to ridicule. Leading the charge against Mrs. Jeleva was the Bulgarian member of the EU Parliament, Madame Parvanova, a hawkish looking individual well suited to the role of a conspirator. She was assisted by a Dutch member of the Greens, Madame Sargentini, who was so eager to get her claws into Mrs. Jevela she reminded me of a wolf frothing at the mouth. Her determination to transform the EU hearings into a boxing match led her to forget that such occasions have rules and traditions and require a level of decorum. Still, Ms. Sargentini could be forgiven for having a fresh mouth since she was playing to the Dutch-German Left that had been feeding rumour about Mrs. Jeleva to the media for weeks, all at the behest of the BCP.
For me, witnessing the event from my study in New York, the most depressing part of the tawdry drama was the role played by Madame Parvanova. She was determined to provide other EU nationals with lies to take down a Bulgarian political rival. Part of the tragedy is that she was unconcerned about the damage she was doing to her nation’s image. Her behavior was truly primitive in a fashion familiar to many people in the Balkans. Her modus operandi was based on the premise that you do whatever it takes to discredit the opposition. Now where did she come across that philosophy? It was the ethos of those from whose political loins she and Madame Kuneva came from. Some might say it was an ethos, which encouraged political cannibalism if it served the cause. Parvanova and others created an atmosphere in which it was impossible for Mrs. Jeleva to speak freely at the hearings. Mrs. Jeleva was made to feel like a rabbit trapped in the headlights of hunters bent on her destruction.
What happened on January 12 in Brussels was a spectacle unworthy of Bulgaria as a nation and it will not be easily forgotten or swept aside. At a time when Bulgaria is seeking respectability internationally, Madame Parvanova, along with her acolytes in the shadows, made that more difficult to achieve. Whatever the merits of Mrs. Jeleva’s candidacy for the E.U. Commission, she behaved with dignity whereas her enemies showed that Old Europe is creeping back into the body politic. Bulgarians concerned about the image of their nation internationally should let Madame Parvanova know that they will not permit people like her to expose them up to ridicule for narrow political gain.
Personally, I hope Mrs. Jeleva is appointed to the Commission because it will show that the EU is not prepared to provide a platform for the conspiratorial politics of the Parvanovas and Kunevas of this world and their fellow travelers elsewhere in Europe.