In this week’s episode of EURACTIV’s Beyond the Byline, we are talking about the worst inflation of the past decades and low-income countries like Albania being pushed into poverty. We also ask if accession to the EU remains citizens’ biggest hope and why the country’s prime minister is lashing out at the EU.
But first, we start our journey in Bulgaria, where the outgoing government decided to expel 70 Russian diplomats for espionage amidst pro and anti-government protests.
Episode Transcript
Evi: Hello, and welcome to EURACTIV’s Beyond the Byline podcast, I am Evi Kiorri and every week we provide a view on what’s beyond the news.
We are experiencing the worst inflation of the past decades and countries like Albania are pushed to poverty. We ask if the accession in the EU remains the citizen’s biggest hope and why the country’s prime minister is lashing out at the EU.
But first we start our journey from Bulgaria where the outgoing government decided to expel 70 Russian diplomats for espionage, all this in the aftermath of numerous protests against the outgoing government.
Georgi: A lot of tensions. So the most surprising was the decision of the outgoing government of Kiril Petkov to kick out 70 Russian diplomats and embassy staff. That is a record number for the post Cold War period not only for Bulgaria, but overall.
Evi: Georgi Gotev is EURACTIV’s senior editor and publisher of EURACTIV Bulgaria.
Georgi: It’s strange because Bulgaria is known as an EU and NATO country keen to preserve its traditional good relations with Russia. And now Bulgaria runs the risk of seeing Russia close its embassy in Sofia.
Evi: And why is this important? What does it mean in practice?
This is a signal that something important is happening behind the scenes. And there are many conspiracy theories. For my part, I will try to answer your question by quoting what politicians said. First and foremost the prime minister, Petkov, he named the Russian ambassador in Sofia, Eleonora Mitrofanova as one of the people responsible for the no confidence vote that brought down his government on the 23rd of June Petkov said he was honoured to be the prime minister of a government, which was overthrown by the leaders of the political parties who voted against him and Mitrofanova. It’s quite unusual. And it’s also very significant that along with the political forces who voted against him in parliament, the Bulgarian prime minister mentions the name of the Russian ambassador.
And then Mitrofanova, I will quote her she spoke on national television and she said the following. I’m quoting to be precise: “if he at cough had changed his rhetoric and not talked the way he does, I think he would have had a very long political life and of quote Mitrofanova said. You know, the Bulgarian press wrote that this statement can be interpreted as a direct trap from Russia, suggesting that if the prime minister behaves favourably towards the Kremlin. He would have remained in Bulgarian politics for a long time. This is a scandal.
Evi: And why is Bulgaria important for Russia? What role does the country play?
Georgi: Bulgarians are grateful that tsarist Russia, uh, wage the Russia and Turkish war in 1877, 1878 liberating Bulgaria after 500 years of Ottoman rule. Many Russians gave their lives for the freedom of Bulgaria. Russians feel comfortable in Bulgaria. Some 300,000 Russians have reportedly bought homes in Bulgaria, especially at the Black sea coast. However, the economic relations are in an all time low because of the sanction. There are no air flights therefore no Russian tourists in Bulgaria.
Although Russia used to be the number one country, according to the number of tourists in Bulgaria. So Bulgaria is important to Russia and at the same time, maybe it isn’t.
Evi: On a previous episode of the podcast I had Krassen Nikolov explaining to us why the ties between Russia and Bulgaria remained strong and how Bulgarians didn’t hold Putin accountable for the war in Ukraine. Do you think that this new, let’s say, crisis among the two countries will change this belief?
Georgi: I think that this is precisely what is happening right now. While some politicians in Sofia are very vocal about the dire consequences of Bulgaria, Russia closing its embassy, others see this crisis as an opportunity. My personal opinion is that Bulgaria needs shock therapy to get rid of a relationship with Russia. And before that, with the Soviet union, which was never respectful of Bulgaria sovereignty. Moscow has always acted and communicated as if Bulgaria was its colony and Bulgarian leaders were its servants.
Evi: And what is Russia’s goal with this ultimatum and what has been the reaction of the Bulgarian government to that?
Georgi: The Russian ambassador gave a very stupid ultimatum for Bulgaria to reverse its decision to kick out the 70 Russian diplomats and embassy staff or the next day at 12 o’clock Russia would close its embassy.
The reaction of the government was very calm. The ultimatum expired and nothing happened. Russia didn’t break relations as Mitrofanova had threatened. We’re still waiting for the Russian reaction.
Evi: Another interesting aspect is the data presented by the Bulgarian secret services that Russia pays public figures to spread its propaganda. What’s your take on this and how important is this?
Georgi: I’m sure that indeed, as the Bulgarian secret services recently said, the Russian embassy and Russian funds are paying money to Bulgarian opinion makers and Bulgarian media. To pass the message of the Kremlin to the Bulgarian public. In addition, a lot of people in Bulgaria watch Russian television channels and are exposed to this propaganda anyway. Bulgaria is probably the country most impacted by Russian propaganda.
The problem so far has been that with the weak government, in which at least one political force in the coalition, the socialists are pro Russian. There was little appetite to tackle this problem and very probably Bulgarians we will vote in early elections in September. Hopefully a different majority will be able to make good decisions for the country. Including to fight effectively the Russian disinformation. But while I’m saying this,I know that this is wishful thinking. It is very difficult to have a reformist majority in Bulgaria, a country where the mafia and the Russian agents are still very strong.
Evi: And what would the solution to the propaganda be? Are there fundamental changes in the media required?
Georgi: As everyone has noticed Bulgaria is usually ranked very, very low as a country, where the media freedom is really a big problem. And I think the media have a huge responsibility in fighting the Russian propaganda and of presenting issues in a honest manner.
But this is not going to happen overnight. I am among a group of journalists. We are trying to make things change, this is why personally I created EURACTIV Bulgaria three years ago but it’s a long way, but we will succeed.
Evi: Thank you, Georgi.
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There is a lot of worry in the atmosphere due to the inflation that follows the energy crisis and the Russian war in Ukraine. The first countries that feel the repercussions of this inflation are the poorest ones. Albania, who is one of the candidates to join the EU is one of these countries.
Alice: It’s rough, before this sort of situation got to the point where we were at now, Albania was a country with the third of the population living below the international poverty line. So that’s living on less than $5 a day.
Evi: Alice Taylor is EURACTIV’s editor reporting from Tirana.
Alice: It’s really tough here for people anyway. And then when you put into the equation, things like the increasing price of fuel and the cost of food going up, this becomes a significant issue because okay in Albania, we have quite a low percentage of car owners, but the price of fuel is one of the highest in Europe.
And of course, to move goods, to bring food from the ports, from the airport to make deliveries to shops, to deliver flour to bakeries that all requires fuel, petrol, diesel. And if the price of that has gone up, this is then passed onto shops.
Evi: Alice, you live there, you experienced these people’s reality first hand. How is the situation?
Alice: There was a bakery on my road, which is closed because they were in a situation where they couldn’t sell food at a price that people could afford to buy it. Does that make sense? You know, they would’ve had to have put the price up so high that people would’ve been not able to afford bread.
And this is a big problem. Things like cooking oil it’s about five euros a litter at the moment. And if you consider the average Albanian is bringing home about 300 to 350 euros a month. It’s huge. It’s a huge amount of their money. Some food items have increased in price up to 40%.
So this is while overall inflation is maybe around 10 or 11%, some items that number is significantly higher. So people are definitely feeling the pinch. Another issue, it might seem silly, but people can’t even afford to go to the coast for the weekend or during the summer. They can’t afford to go to the beach because they can’t afford the fuel.
They can’t afford to eat when they get there. The price of coffee’s gone up, the price of an umbrella on the beach. This might sound like a luxury, but these are things which impact people’s lives. So morale is low as well. People are not able to go and enjoy themselves like they were before. They’re constantly worried about being able to afford things.
Evi: And what is the government doing about it?
Alice: They’ve been widespread protests. There were huge national protests. In fact, they were the largest nonpartisan protests since the fall of communism against the rise in the cost of living. And there have been other protests since as well because people say that the government are not doing enough.
What you have to understand is the government coffers have increased by hundreds of millions of euros because of price rises. So because costs have gone up the revenue, the government gets has increased as well, but this is not being passed back to people. There have been some relief packages and some bits of help here or there. I think it was the world bank recently said that the government are not doing enough to help people.
The central bank of Albania, the governor who doesn’t usually speak out against the government, said the government needs to do more to help vulnerable people. Now they set up a transparency board, because when prices for everything started going up, people said that the market was being abused. Like fuel companies were putting over inflating prices, et cetera. So they created this transparency board, which supposed to meet every week and review prices together and set prices for things like fuel cooking oil, flour, sugar, essential basket items.
But the problem is this transparency board is comprised of some of the richest business owners in the entire country. So you have people who control entire markets, like you have one man who controls the entire fuel market, who sat on this board, setting the price for the cost of fuel. This is not people don’t find it effective. Obviously they’re not going to set lower prices because that would result in them losing money.
Evi: And is Albania still hoping for things to get better on a financial level with its EU accession? And how are things on that front?
Alice: Albania’s and north Macedonia’s EU integration path over the last couple of weeks has been like something out of a Turkish telenovela. I’ve just been sort glued to what’s going on. So essentially Albania is one of the most EU hopeful, positive loving countries in the region. Albanian people really want to be part of the EU since they fell from communism, this has been the sole focus of the country. But obviously the enlargement process for wanting for better phrase has gone a bit tits up and is not going to plan.
Edi Rama, our prime minister, who is, he’s a character he’s not your normal statesman. Macron is like the most boring person you’ve ever met in your entire life. Whereas we have Edi Rama who just doesn’t care. And he turned up at the Western Balkans EU summit a couple of weeks ago and he said: I “feel really sorry for the EU they’re impotent. They don’t have any power. I hope we can help them.” He really laid into them and even the other day just this week, he called them impotent again. He said the EU is outdated, the way it works is outdated, it has to be changed.
But then he made this joke and I was like you can’t go around saying things like this. He compared the EU to a bride, to a wife and he said: “we’ve been waiting for our bride to come from Brussels, but she’s never come. If she wants to come and marry us and get into bed with us and have children, that’s great. But if she doesn’t, you know, we feel bad,” and I was like, you are comparing a accession to having sex. This is so cringy. But I see his frustration because Albania is not perfect, there is a lot of work still to do. We’ve been trying and [ we deserve to be part of EU when I look at what’s going on in Bulgaria and I think we are doing a bit better than them and they’re members of the EU quite a long time.
Evi: And do you think these comments against the EU from the Albanian prime minister are a way to boost the citizens morale and maybe his voters morale?
Alice: I wrote about this now. I am not someone who praises politicians. I don’t generally like any politicians. But do you know what, and I don’t particularly like Edi Rama either and that’s been quite polite, but do you know what, when he stood on that stage in Brussels and he spoke like that, not the comments about the bride that was later, but when he got up on that stage and he spoke out and he said “you need to sort yourself out. It’s pathetic. You can’t stand up to Bulgaria. There’s no unity.” I think people look at the Western Balkans and they feel sorry for the Western Balkans they’re “oh, poor Western Balkans, they’ll never get in.”
They look down on us and I don’t think Edi Rama wanted to go to Brussels and beg or to sell his pride “oh we really want to be part of you, please let us in,” he stood on that stage and he said: “okay, fine. You get your own house sorted and we’ll be here when you are ready.” He kept the pride of the country. And as you know, Albanians are very proud people, people in the Balkans are very proud people. They’ve been through a huge amount in order to hang onto their identities, their countries, their borders and do you know what I’m quite proud of those prime ministers who stood up there and defended themselves.
I think it was something. They were defending themselves, but it was also a boost for people in the countries as well, who are feeling deflated, who are feeling hopeless. It was: “do you know what no one needs to pity us.” And I think that was a very important message that was sent. And this is one of the few times you’ll ever hear me praising a politician.
Evi: Alice, thank you for joining us!
I am Evi Kiorri and this was EURACTIV’s Beyond the Byline podcast. Visit EURACTIV.com for the latest news. And if you haven’t subscribed to the podcast, you can do so on your favourite podcasting app. This episode was produced by me with the help of Georgi Gotev and Alice Taylor.
Thank you very much for listening!