Bulgarian President Rumen Radev told reporters after the EU summit on Friday (June 25) that he strongly supports the proposal of the leaders of France and Germany to hold an EU summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying that it will have Help the group become a global player.
On Thursday/Friday evenings, after Poland and the three Baltic countries stated that as East-West relations deteriorated and the wrong message would be sent, EU leaders failed to agree on France and Germany’s proposal to hold a summit with Putin as soon as possible.
It is said that Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz supported the Franco-German proposal, but according to reports, the opposite view prevented a decision from being passed.
When asked about Bulgaria’s position, Radev made no secret of saying that he strongly supports the initiative to hold a summit with Putin.
“I told EU leaders that this is not just a question of attitude towards Russia. It is a question of our level of ambition to play a global role as an alliance. We must either become global players or bystanders on the global stage. , The United States, China, Russia and other big countries will perform there,” he told a group of reporters.
Radev recalled that on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the European Union, all EU leaders signed the Rome Declaration in 2017.day On the anniversary, it elaborated on the ambition of “building a stronger Europe on the global stage”.
“Realism is also necessary in geopolitics. At the last EU summit I said that the seven-year sanctions were not accidental. [EU sanctions against Russia] Did not bring the desired result. This is why we need to find new tools to develop our relationship, especially to ease the situation,” he explained.
Radev believes that the EU and Russia share a common European space, and the two countries have many common interests in the fields of climate, fighting the epidemic, and especially security.
“We just lost in the confrontation. That’s why President Biden and President Putin sent the first signals in this direction,” said Radev when talking about their recent meeting in Geneva.
He also found support for the development of relations with Russia in the strategy recently proposed by Joseph Borrell, the head of EU foreign affairs. Some analysts believe that the strategy is quite confrontational.
“The initiative of German Chancellor Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron is justified. Although it did not become part of the conclusion, due to the reservation of some members, this form of dialogue will come true sooner or later,” he said. .
The last EU summit with Putin was held in Brussels in January 2014. Since then, France and Germany have held summits with Putin to discuss the issue of eastern Ukraine in the so-called Normandy format. The last summit was held in Paris in December 2019.
[Edited by Zoran Radosavljevic]
