Standart News

Atanas Ivanov, Phd in Philosophy

Bulgaria's EU membership, just like anything else of considerable significance, is neither only good nor bad, only useful or harmful. If Bulgaria succeeds in taking advantage of the opportunities the EU offers and in neutralizing the negative consequences from this membership, the country's prosperity would be a real fact. Unfortunately, instead of merely discussing how to gain better positions in the new Roman Empire, as I see the EU, Bulgaria often places itself in the role of a meek province. A certain illusion causes this behaviour. And namely that the EU is about fraternal mutual help, that the EU is the pier that protects us from the fury of the competition. That the Bulgarian interests are not endangered because our big brothers take care of us. They would not let us live in the dungeons of our common European home. Once Bulgaria is in the EU, it has got a limited sovereignty but the responsibility for the Bulgarians' well-being is up to the big brothers. Our task is to play by their rules. We just have to be good kids and do as told and live a carefree life.
Facts, though, have soon dispersed this illusion. Brussels's interests do not always comply with Bulgaria's. The liberalization of the goods and services market is a merciless match in which Bulgaria often appears as a straw-weight boxer playing against a sumo wrestler. The results need no prediction. The most of Bulgarian economic and market space has been invaded. The main part of the economy is owned by foreign companies. They export the profit and only the taxes remain in Bulgaria which as a financial instrument for prosperity is rather insufficient. The way out of this is the absorption of EU funds.
Brussels happens to apply double standard.' A telling example is the pay given to the Bulgarian project expert researchers and managers in the Lifelong Learning Programmes. These people are humiliated by being paid twelve times less then their peers coming from Central and Western Europe. The well articulated reaction of Bulgaria's Minister of Education, Sergey Ignatov at the conference of ministers of scientific research in Copenhagen gave a start of the elimination of this injustice.
Money for improving the Bulgarians' standard of living does exist but mostly in the EU funds, not in Bulgarian state budget. And this money can be procured but not through moaning but through intelligent actions. A sure tool in these actions is the well-read staff working in the spheres of education and science. Having gained recognition abroad they have the skills to meet the requirements set by the EU funds for education and science.
The reforms that have taken place for the last two years in the Bulgarian education facilitate the track towards the absorption of EU funds. Greater autonomy has given opportunity to many young Bulgarians to develop professionally in the country and has postponed or ruled out their emigration. The universities, now being allowed to accept or not diplomas and certificates from abroad has broadened mobility and attracts more well-motivated and educated staff. The differentiation of the universities? funding on the base of objective criteria has mobilized the creative potential of the researchers.
The dynamically changing global world has radically changed the structure of the world economy.
The Bulgarian education is entitled with the historic mission to train creative persons who can not only read abut also understand what they have read, who can interpret, analyze information. Thinkers and seekers, inventors, fluent in the European languages, the information and communication technologies. People of new values adequate to the dynamics of changes. If such people exist, Bulgaria will prosper.