NATO will hold its first summit after Brexit in Warsaw on 8 and 9 July. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg stated that after the UK decided to leave the EU a “fragmented Europe” would exacerbate “instability and unpredictability” in the region. Some say that Brexit is not independence for the UK from Europe, but independence for Europe from USA and that it heralds the end of the Anglo-Saxon prospect within the EU. Others are not ruling out a “Nexit” (from NATO and exit) as a follow-up to Brexit. 

Under these circumstances, what are the positions Bulgaria will be upholding at the Warsaw summit?

These positions were finalized at an extraordinary cabinet sitting at the end of last week. Defence Minister Nenchev pointed out that the focus is on enhancing security and the alliance’s balanced and reinforced presence in its Eastern flank and the region of the Black Sea, creating stability in the NATO periphery as well as on crisis management and refugee flows. By “reinforced presence” in the Black Sea the government means a more concentrated timetable of NATO exercises, consistent with the Montreux convention, under which the warships of non-Black Sea countries can spend no more than 21 days in Black Sea waters. The cabinet’s motive for a reinforced presence in the Black Sea is to cut off migrant flows across it comparable to the NATO operation in the Aegean; it rules out any targeting of maneuvers against Russia whatsoever.

Three days ago Bulgaria’s Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov stated that in Wasraw Sofia would demand that the countries of NATO’s Northeastern flank – the Baltic countries plus Poland - be given equal treatment as the countries of the Southeast – the Black Sea basin and the remaining portion of NATO’s external border to the Southeast. It would be interesting to see how this position will mix with the comments made by Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier last week that NATO maneuvers in Poland and the Baltic region were “sabre-rattling” and “warmongering” against Russia.

Analysts in Sofia say that the existing security threats do not require an enhanced NATO land presence on the territory of Bulgaria.

There are differences with regard to the sanctions imposed on Russia as well. Again three days ago, Foreign Minister Mitov commented that NATO does not need military confrontation because the economic sanctions against Russia are working well enough. This statement comes at a time when the European countries are far from united on the issue, with Italy and Hungary most sceptical about the sanctions and Poland and the Baltic republics – most eager to see them implemented.

At NATO’s Warsaw summit, the Bulgarian delegation will be putting efforts into a draft NATO-EU declaration that would be an additional instrument of strategic partnership in building military capabilities, countering hybrid and cyber threats, exchanging information, security capacity-building, maritime security, migration etc.

With the United Kingdom leaving the EU, discussions on these sensitive issues are much more complicated and difficult to predict – we shall see initial developments in the days to come.

English version: Milena Daynova