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Simeon Mitropolitski is a Canadian analyst, of Bulgarian origin, and a former syndicated columnist with the Bulgarian News Agency (BTA). He is the author of several hundred articles dealing with hot political and economic topics, both national and international.
He was part of the first group of Bulgarian intellectuals and students that began the opposition movement that finally put an end to the communist regime in this country in 1989, and in 1996-1997 participated in international observation teams during the elections in several Balkan countries - Romania, Albania and Bulgaria.
In 2002 Simeon and his family moved from Bulgaria to Canada where they live now in Montreal, province of Quebec. Simeon is a Master of Political Science from McGill University and a B.A. of Political Science and History.
Global Real Estate Project
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Eastern Europe 2006: between peace and war
East Central EuropeThe assessment of East Central Europe would hardly be substantially different from what we did exactly one year ago. All these countries feel good in their new EU environment. They are far away from their former communist-period imperial masters, so there is no short-term danger for these countries of any historical bad remake. The major problems, if we can name them this way, for some of these countries are now coming from the West, under the form of increased xenophobia against the "Polish plumber". This is a metaphor used about the East European workers lowering the price of West European workforce. It was considered to be the major reason why the French electorate voted against the European constitution in 2005. The new EU countries from East Central Europe have an excellent argument against all these fears. It's better to outsource industries from France to Poland, than from France to China. So given the still large disparity between the salaries in France and Poland, the salaries in purchasing power are less than a half, these new EU countries will keep attracting new investments, at least until they begin feeling the heat following the next EU enlargement.
Baltic StatesThe economy of these countries will go up by attracting new investments, largely from more advanced EU countries. The general assessment of this group however should be slightly different from the last year. Russia is rising again, thanks to the Western petrodollars, and one way to measure this assertion of power is by looking at Moscow's relations with its former satellites, especially with those, which are weaker and are situated closer. As EU and NATO members the Baltic states aren't helpless, but compared to their immediate western neighbors in East Central Europe they are much more vulnerable, especially given non insignificant Russian ethnic communities, at least in some of them. By being inside NATO and EU, and given their historic and demographic legacies, these three countries may act either as Russian Trojan horses inside the West, or as Western Trojan horses inside the former Soviet space.
Eastern Balkans + CroatiaTwo countries within this heterogeneous region will most certainly be EU members by January 2007. There is a slight possibility that their membership may be delayed by one year, but this decision finally will be made in Brussels regardless of the level of readiness of Sofia and Bucharest. These two countries are comparatively speaking even poorer than the poorest EU country, so their transition to more acceptable living standard within the EU may take longer. It's arguable whether they may even hope to catch up with the core EU countries. Croatia and Turkey have just started negotiations for EU membership. For Croatia they will take some years, for Turkey at least a decade. Croatia lost precious time fighting for a bigger share from the Yugoslav heritage. Now it's looking economically barely better than Bulgaria and Romania. There is still a difference between them favoring Zagreb, but it's much smaller than 15 years ago. Turkey has also wasted its privileged role during the Cold War. It's no more a darling for the West. From the European semi-periphery it has gradually slipped into periphery. Ankara may be invited some day to join the EU, but will then the EU be still worth joining?
Western BalkansThe fate of many nationalities within this sub-region has still to be drawn. The status of Kosovo and Montenegro, the rights of the Albanians in Macedonia and Serbia, the rights of the Serbs in Bosnia, the future of Albania as a modern state instead of aggregation of clans, all these issues must be solved before we could think about complete regional pacification. 2005 was a good year to try to begin solving these issues. This chance was wasted. Nobody's talking overtly about a new war. If this happens however, it will be a disaster to everyone, with no winners and plenty of losers, especially among those immediately involved. An additional problem comes from the EU which is less prepared now than some years ago to intervene militarily to stop bloodshed. The EU sends promises of future membership, but can they be always enough? The U.S. are also less interested, and given their military commitments elsewhere, they will be even less interested to intervene once at stakes aren't their national interests. After the open disagreement with "Old" Europe over Iraq, it would be very unlikely that Washington will go to help this Europe to extinguish a new fire at its borders as it did in 1999. This lack of foreign interest makes new war a real option despite the official peaceful declarations coming from the region.
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