Bulgarian president blocks common Bucharest Nine position on Ukraine

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, known for his long-term opposition to sending aid to Ukraine, blocked the adoption of a common position on the provision of military aid to Kyiv at the Bucharest Nine forum in Riga on Tuesday.

The B9 forum is a regional format for consultation and dialogue on security issues involving NATO members Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland.

“This year’s summit is different from all previous ones. For the first time, there will be no joint declaration of all participants, and you will not see my name under this declaration. Instead, there will be a statement by the two co-chairs, Poland and Romania, and the host Latvia. This is because there is no full consensus on the text of this joint declaration, especially on the different views on how to achieve a way out of this bloody war,” Radev said upon his arrival at the Bucharest Nine (B9) forum in the Latvian capital Riga.

New NATO members Sweden and Finland, as well as NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, will attend the summit.

Radev said that Bulgaria had been actively involved in the preparations for the Riga summit and that he had changed the initial proposal for a joint statement, which included a commitment by each B9 country to provide military assistance to Ukraine.

“As a result, the position was adopted that each country should decide on its own and according to its own capabilities whether and how to help Ukraine – whether with military, financial or humanitarian aid,” the Bulgarian president said.

The Bulgarian parliament has passed two explicit resolutions in favour of sending military aid to Ukraine, although Radev, who himself opposes this, is now opposing its inclusion in the joint declaration of the B9 countries.

Because of the political crisis, the president is actively preparing to enter party politics, which could happen much sooner than January 2027, when his second term expires.

However, parliament is unlikely to open impeachment proceedings against Radev, even though he has boycotted its decisions. The main political players have no use for making Radev a victim and further pumping up his ratings.

“I think we have to be aware of the realities. We all want international law to prevail as soon as possible, Ukraine to restore its territorial integrity and Russia to stop its aggression, but we have to take into account the realities, and they are that Ukraine alone has neither the material, financial nor human resources to achieve this,” the president noted.

He also stressed that there are two ways to end the war: one is through peaceful negotiations, and the other is through NATO countries’ provision of additional material, financial, and human resources, which Ukraine lacks. “Do you agree that we should take this path, which leads to absolutely nowhere and with a huge risk for global security?” the president questioned.

Radev’s position once again puts him in line with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.

Hungary and other central European countries have been at odds over Orban’s close ties to Russia and his refusal to supply arms to Ukraine.

Both the presidents of Hungary and Slovakia did not attend Tuesday’s B9 Summit, which was instead attended by the countries’ ambassadors to Latvia.

(Antonia Kotseva, Krassen Nikolov | Euractiv.bg)

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