Ivan Kostov is a politician, scientist, expert, Prime Minister of Bulgaria from 1997 to 2001. He was Minister of Finance in two cabinets, was the leader of the Union of Democratic Forces (1994 - 2001) and of Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria (2004 - 2013), and worked in seven Bulgarian parliaments. Emi Baruch talks to Ivan Kostov about some of today's economic and social problems.
What topics are at the center of public debate today?
Ivan Kostov: Public debate is currently very far from the problems of society. It focuses on the relations between political parties, and not on whether their leaders take a position on the country's acute problems.
Extremely important and extremely worrying social phenomena remain aside from the public debate. For example, the loss of people's trust not only in the government, but in the systems that maintain vital functions for society. One of them is healthcare.
What are we observing? The doctors at the Sandanski hospital are resigning en masse because the municipal council has organized a kind of public court for them, to which people related to a family that lost a baby in a car for emergency medical care have been invited. They call the doctors murderers and they are resigning en masse. What does this testify to, except for an absolute loss of trust by a part of Bulgarian society in the people who care about our health.
This means that it is becoming absolutely impossible for patients to be treated. In order to be treated, they must have trust in the doctor. This is of the utmost importance. When this trust in the healthcare system disappears, it cannot function. And it begins to fall apart before our eyes.
Let's take the other vitally important system - where the country's new citizens are created - education. Parents have lost trust in the school education system and are going to argue with teachers for writing doubles to their children before they even see that the doubles are absolutely deserved. This means that the efforts of the school system, of the teachers themselves, to do what is necessary to make children try and gain skills, abilities, knowledge are practically blocked. To create in them those attitudes that are key for students to become good Bulgarian citizens. For example, to distinguish good from evil. At least to distinguish that.
Do you see what is happening? It so happens that from the loss of trust in key state institutions - such as the government, such as the legislative body - distrust goes down and reaches levels where the damage is truly dangerous.
And the last example: a 51 percent increase in police salaries. This is unheard of in the world, it doesn't exist anywhere.
Let's say it clearly and quite directly to the people who are about to bring the police to protest on the streets. There is no such situation in the world when inflation is 2.8% to have a 51% increase in salaries. This is really for Guinness. If these people take to the streets, the entire system will collapse. Do you understand where we have come to?
Why? How did it get here?
Ivan Kostov: Because - I return to the beginning - for politicians these things are somehow not painful, they do not have the sensitivity that is necessary to speak to people, to propose solutions. To be honest. To say, for example, that there is no such money in the budget.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall, we observe the collapsed illusions of people for a rapid economic rise. What is the short explanation?
Ivan Kostov: It is not about collapsed illusions. We had a plan, we had an idea, we had a program for Bulgaria to return to where it belongs - in the European family, in this family where we were from our Liberation until 1944. When we were one of the settled states. These are not illusions. This was an absolutely mandatory plan to implement. This plan was sabotaged. These are the exact words.
In other socialist countries, these plans worked and they are currently in a completely different situation. In our country, a huge sabotage of the European modernization of the country was carried out. The sabotage came from the elite of the former communist party and the special services, which created organized crime. It was their resistance that diverted the Bulgarian transition from its containment and from the creation of a consolidated democracy in the country.
Why do you think the intelligentsia does not fulfill its role as a corrective to the government?
Ivan Kostov: I don't think the reason is the intelligentsia. The intelligentsia speaks. It tries to influence. Not only humanitarians and artists speak, but also those who are experts in their field. In the debate on the country's budget, for example, there were extremely frank, deep insights, clear ones from the analysts who participated. With the exception of two people - Yordan Tsonev and Assen Vassilev, who came out with a somewhat hesitant position. Everyone else says what needs to be said. The question of why politicians don't hear them is the real one, the answer to which is painful.
People who have nothing to do with the intelligentsia, who are unable to listen to it, unable to understand it, unable to analyze things themselves, have taken up positions at the political top of the country. They are unable to see in the medium term, not even in the nearest future, what is happening in the country. That is, they have no foresight. And they have nowhere to get it. These people - I will put it very mildly - are very far from the opportunity to communicate with the intelligentsia.
What do you think the outcome is?
Ivan Kostov: Perhaps a reasonable outcome is for people to orient themselves and vote. To find a way out for the political class through their choice, realizing that many of their votes are going absolutely in vain.
The other outcome is for what happened in 1994-1996 to happen again - hyperinflation. And this would happen if financial discipline collapses again to such an extent that the axis that we built in 1997-1998 breaks down. This is the axis between monetary policy with a currency board and fiscal stability, guaranteed by a number of mechanisms that we had built into the then long-term budget law. This axis has been holding the macroeconomic stability of the country for 25 years or more. This axis is currently crumbling. Some say - but won't the board save us? If the axis breaks, the board cannot save us. The board will hang without fiscal stability, without a consolidated budget, with a drastically violated law on public finances. The board cannot sustain this situation.
There is a violated European regulation that defines what proper fiscal policy means. There are fiscal rules in the EU that have been violated. These are the rules for the structural deficit, which must be no more than 0.5 percent of the gross domestic product, and if it is violated, measures should be taken, there are rules for the deficit of the consolidated budget, there is a whole page of rules in the law on public finances that have been violated.
For example, budget expenditures cannot outpace the growth of the gross domestic product. In our country, the gross domestic product is growing in physical terms, let's say by 7 percent, and expenses are increasing by 28 percent.
It is true that there are some exceptions related to the hope that we will receive European money, but they also do not withstand the criticism that was made.
People will only learn if they suffer it. Unfortunately, we only come to our senses when we suffer, when the crisis really hits us.
You say that the way out is for people to orient themselves and vote. Doesn't it bother you that the relative weight of the far right, whose rhetoric is openly anti-European, is increasing.
Ivan Kostov: Unfortunately, there are anti-European tendencies in many countries. There are them in Germany, there are them in France, and with much heavier political participation in parliaments. The trust voted for the far right in key European countries is greater than in Bulgaria. I am not saying "be calm because it is worse somewhere". I am saying that we need to seek a deep answer to this question - why is this happening in Italy, in Germany, in France. Why is this happening in Europe. Obviously, there are brutal mistakes in the policy being pursued. The question is very serious. This is another very big, very difficult topic that should not just hang in the air and we should not be satisfied with some explanations that came to mind by this or that person.
I will repeat again: for something like a protest to appear against the policy being pursued in European countries, this means that the wrong policy is being pursued.
Look at what is happening in the States! The entire people are turning and standing up against the political establishment. And saying: "We don't want this!" The problem is that a huge part of liberal values has entered into "what we don't want". We need to think about these things. These are very serious processes. This debate is also absent from the Bulgarian public, if we return to the first question.
You say that we only come to our senses when we suffer, that the solution is for the crisis to really hit us…
Ivan Kostov: No. I am saying that if we are very capable and meaningful people, if we are reasonable, we must face these most serious problems of Bulgarian society: a political threat to the political structure, the collapsing system of trust on which the state is based and which sustains our lives, trust in the police, trust in healthcare, in education, etc.
What trust can I have in police officers who are ready to go on strike and stir up trouble in the state because they have not been given a 51 percent salary increase? Can you imagine what I think of these people? What does the average person think of these people?
Author: Emi Baruch