Open Letter to the European Commission
29/03/2019
Dear Madam/Sir,
We are writing this letter to appeal to you as an EU taxpayers, EU citizens, and representatives of NGO - “Free Forum” organization registered on the 13th of April 2016 in Sofia City Court in Bulgaria. We would like to address some concerns we have regarding major issues that impact a large part of the population in Bulgaria. We will detail hereunder in brief the issues and their genesis.
In Bulgaria, the transition to a market economy and democracy began more than 29 years ago, and ever since the Bulgarian society has undergone complex structural and social transformations. The result of those tremendous changes, besides the possibility of easier immigration, didn't benefit much to ordinary Bulgarians, and their way of life compared to other eastern European countries, and this is despite the fact that our country became a full member of NATO and the EU more than 10 years ago. According to reporters without borders Bulgaria is 111th in regard of freedom of speech and last on the Balkan Peninsula, despite the fact that countries like Albania, Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina are not even EU member states. It is also easy to see that the stratification of our society as well as the relationships between its stratas is very similar to those in Russia and it will not be far from the truth if we say that contemporary Bulgaria is a diminutive copy of Russia while being part of the EU. We also understand that it is very hard for western bureaucrats working for the EC to comprehend all that because most of them don’t even have the vaguest idea how Bulgarians lived before year 89, and how the former Communist Party ruled the country at the time with the help of its repressive apparatus - State Security.
It is no secret for most elderly Bulgarians that the transition to democracy and market economy in the 1990s was entirely orchestrated by the former Communist Party elite, along with its secret services. For that purpose, they created legends for many individuals who were actually working and reporting to them and they were presented to the public as dissidents. Some of them were supposedly even put fictitiously in prisons (like the politician Ahmed Dogan) so they could have appropriate history and be able to deceive the masses. At the same time, the people who were really opposing the communist regime were forced into psychiatric clinics and prisons, and very few of them were able to survive or keep their sanity, but they have never been allowed to enter politics in Bulgaria.
It is curious to know that some (probably most of them) of the journalists and public figures who are supposedly “fighting” the communists and the Russian influence in Bulgaria are actually “former” informers of the communist Secret Services, have been members of the communist party, and also come from families with heavy communist background. Examples of such public figures who are widely presented by the Bulgarian medias are Ilian Vasisliev, also known by his alias - Sasho 11 (former Bulgarian ambassador to Russia for 6 years. His term started right after Putin became president), and Ivo Indjev, also known by his alias - Ivailo.
All of the leading medias in Bulgaria are owned by few oligarchs who were appointed as such by the communist elite and their secret services. As a result there is no way for the ordinary Bulgarians to express their views in those media channels.
In Bulgaria the market economy is fictitious because the state resources during the transition period were distributed amongst the communist comrades, so that there was no way for the ordinary Bulgarians to start their own businesses. Such opportunities were given only to certain people who came from the right families or were faithful to the regime. In Bulgaria there is a belief that suitcases full of money were given to certain people who later became oligarchs which is probably not far from the truth.
Considering the genesis of democracy and the market economy in Bulgaria, it is no wonder that the state of the judiciary system in Bulgaria is constantly being criticized by the EC. The real meaning of the existence of this kind of judicial system is to protect the power and interests of the communist oligarchy.
It is well known fact that all appointments in Bulgaria during the time of communism of high level officials occurred with the blessing of the USSR leaders. In fact, Russia up to this day never lost control in Bulgaria, and still the future of our country depends to a large extent on the will of people like Putin. United States and Western European countries are blaming Russia because of their hybrid warfare, but at the same time Russia still has huge influence in Bulgaria despite the fact that our country is part of NATO and EU. There are even rumors about Russians registering companies in Bulgaria using proxies to acquire money form the EU structural funds.
People in Bulgaria who are not connected to the former communist party are discriminated against by the former communists and their descendants. Because of this, few years ago we initiated a petition which was sent to Nils Muižnieks - Commissioner for Human Rights at the time in the European Commission which yielded no results.
https://communistornot.com/en/internet-petition
We should also not forget that communists who ruled Bulgaria before 89 came from the lowest strata of the population before 1944, coming into power after killing and putting in concentration camps the Bulgarian elite at that time.
As a result of the communist rule in Bulgaria (which has never ended actually), millions of lives were ruined.
In countries like the US, there are policies called affirmative action, giving preference to people from groups that are considered to be discriminated against. In Bulgaria we observe the opposite phenomenon - people unrelated to the former communist party live in poverty or emigrate because of the inability to find a suitable job corresponding to their abilities or because they live in uncertainty due to the dysfunctional judicial system, protecting primarily the interests of the former communists.
A few years ago we created the website www.communistornot.com where we tried to present to the public the biographies of the people who represent the current Bulgarian elite and their relationship to the former Communist Party, but because of lack of funding, the project was abandoned. On the other hand European Commission is financing projects whose sole purpose is to enrich certain people in Bulgaria. This will be discussed later in this letter along with examples of misuse of European Structural Funds.
We were also wondering how the European communities were going to react if after the WW2 Germany was run by former Nazis or their sons and daughters. Is there anyone who believes that the Communists have caused less evil to mankind than the Nazis? According to some calculations victims of communism are nearly 100 million and probably over one billion lives were ruined. Only in Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 between 3 and 7 million Ukrainians have died because of the communists. We wonder in what way the communists are better than Nazis?!
On the 1st of January 2007 Bulgaria became a full member of the European Union and obtained access to the EU funds. The fees for membership in the EU are paid by Bulgarian taxpayers. According to The Guardian, in 2010 Bulgaria had paid €346.07 million in fees and received €1107 million. However, it is hard to tell, what the money from the EU was spent for. Our country has the worst infrastructure in the EU. For the regular Bulgarians it is very hard to find any information how they can benefit from these European programs although huge amounts of money was awarded to certain Bulgarian medias for that reason.
As an example of misuse of European funds, hereunder we provide the following case which was chosen randomly which we believe is very representative of how things are happening in Bulgaria when it comes to the EU funding. When we open ERASMUS + PROJECT RESULTS (https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/projects/) we see the following project cards:
https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/projects/eplus-project-details/#project/2018-1-BG01-KA102-047127 (EU Grant: 144985 EUR)
https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/projects/eplus-project-details/#project/2017-1-BG01-KA102-035462 (EU Grant: 78495 EUR)
https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/erasmus-plus/projects/eplus-project-details/#project/2017-1-BG01-KA102-035644 (EU Grant: 91620 EUR)
The three NGOs which received the above grants are registered at the following addresses in the same city:
“Patriarh Evtimiy 3”
“PATRIARH EVTIMIJ 3”
“3, Patriarh Evtimij”
which is basically the same address but written in different ways. If you go personally to this address, you will find a small office (you will find links with images of this office after the petition) where you can buy bus tickets and also xerox services are offered. If you decide to walk in and get some info about those NGOs, a person who works there will redirect you to a different address which is a little bit down the same street. At the next address you will find a travel agency. On the front of the office there is a logo of the NGO "Svqt za vsichki" which received EU Grant: 78495 EUR. In Bulgaria, every NGO should be registered at the Ministry of Justice, but we were not able to find there such NGO with an address ‘Patriarh Evtimiy 3’ as it appears in the NGO project card.
In the office itself there is a lady by the name of Iliana Petrova who apparently is responsible for all the NGOs, and also works as a travel agent. The information we received about these NGOs’ activities from that lady was inconclusive. It appeared that for her those three NGOs is one entity. Also she gave us a business card where she appears to be a manager of a travel agency with a similar name as one of the NGOs “SDRUZHENIE INTER SPORT GRUP” which received EU Grant of 91620 EUR. She also explained that she works on projects funded by the EU funds and we will be contacted when a new project starts (whatever this means). However six months halve passed already, and no one contacted us. It seems that there are no clear rules how someone can participate and benefit from those projects, how applicants are selected, and who can apply.
Two of those NGOs don’t even have a website, and the third one has something which is hard to be defined as website and on the top of that, for some reason the content in it is in Russian. There is no contact phone numbers given at the NGOs project cards.
As European taxpayers and EU citizens, and after all written above, we would like to receive some answers of the following questions.
1. We would like to know how the European Commission controls the Structural Funds allocated to Bulgaria. Are there some kind of tools used by the EC for monitoring and control over the national agencies in Bulgaria which in turn are responsible for the distribution of the EU funds to Bulgarian companies and organizations? This is an extremely important question because it is really our money that we pay for Bulgaria being part of the EU.
2. What actions do you intend to undertake to put an end to the discrimination against people in Bulgaria who are not connected to the former communist party and its secret services?
3. How do you counteract the Russian influence in Bulgaria and what kind of actions have you undertaken and what is the result?
The answers to those questions are very important for us, so we would like to receive some answers.
Thank you in advance.
NGO “Free Forum”
P.S. Hereunder we are attaching images showing how the “office” of the NGOs that acquired the money looks like, and the business card of Iliana Petrova.
