Meglena Kuneva, Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs HARDtalk

Welcome to HARDtalk. I'm Stephen Sackur. The EU and Turkey have drawn

up the outline of a deal which might - just might - stem the flow of

migrants from Turkey to the West. But, it will require EU states to

take large numbers of Syrian refugees direct from Turkey. In a

show of collective European burden-sharing which may be hard to

deliver. My guest today is Meglena Kuneva, Bulgaria's deputy prime

minister. Her country shares a border with Turkey, but has shown an

iron fist towards refugees and migrants. So, is Sofia out of step

with European values? Meglena Kuneva, welcome to HARDtalk.

Thank you. I think we have to start with the deal - the outlaying deal -

which has been drawn up between the EU member states and Turkey. It's

somewhat complicated, but it seems Turkey will take back all those

irregular migrants who reach Greece, including Syrians, but only on the

understanding that the EU will agree to take one-for-one Syrians from the

refugee camps inside Turkey. Does Bulgaria support the deal? Yes.

Actually, this is one-for-one deal, as we call it, and I think it's

fair. It's burden-sharing. We show solidarity, which is a must in these

difficult times for Europe and for the world. And yes, we do support

it, really. So to be clear about it, if there will be - and it seems

there will be - quotas decided by the European Commission as to how

many Syrian refugees each EU member state will take, Bulgaria will be

quite happy to accept its quota? Well, nobody's happy under these

circumstances, with quite disturbing sources... Well, forget the word

"happy". You don't have to be happy... It's important. It's

important. Will Bulgaria commit, right now, to take whatever quota it

is given? Yes, if it is about burden-sharing, we fully understand

our responsibility. Yes, we already promised once when the quota system

started to be discussed that we will take our share. Well, that's very

interesting you say that, because last September, yes, you're right,

the European Union began this idea of collective burden-sharing. The

idea was 160,000 refugees would be spread around the member states.

Bulgaria had only agreed to - you said you'd take, what, 1,600? Yes,

this is the share of Bulgaria. How many have you actually taken? Well,

unfortunately, this quota system doesn't work quite well. No. You've

taken two. Two. Indeed. But this is a matter of the willingness of the

refugees, so... Well, it just makes me wonder whether, frankly, this

deal, in outline, is worth the paper it's written on. A country like

yours says, "Yes, yes, we'll accept our quota." But history of the last

six months would suggest you've no real intention of implementing it.

It's not about our intention, I dare say. Bulgaria, of course, is very

much - we stick to what we have promised. But how to make people who

are very much willing to go to Sweden or to Germany - how to make

them and to press them and to force them to come to Bulgaria, which of

course is a country with a language which is not so spread, like German

or English, so this is the first difficulties which the refugees will

face, and also economically, of course, the countries like Germany

and Sweden are better off, and refugees hope that they will have

better lives there. Maybe there's another reason that refugees look at

Bulgaria and think "I don't want to go there." They see, in your

government and your policy, a completely, frankly,

uncompassionate, um, attitude to them. They see violence, they see

that one refugee was actually shot dead by your security forces, and

they think, "I would never want to go to that country." Well, the

refugee hadn't been shot, as you said, but there was a gang, and it

was a ricochet of the bullet, so it's... You can dress it up how you

like, but the fact is, your security forces killed a migrant. Well, I'm

quite careful and aware what does it mean "killed" and what does it mean

something bad to happen by accident. So I wouldn't accept such kind of

words that a refugee was killed. Well, there were also other

incidents, including one incident where some Yazidi migrants were

forcibly returned to Turkish territory from your territory, and

two of them died of hypothermia. There is, underpinning your

government's strategy, many would say - including human rights groups

- is a callousness which is remarkable, even in Eastern Europe

today. Well, we have some troubles to make people to be registered, and

this is also part of our obligation. Because we can very nicely discuss,

ah, our human obligations, and I fully subscribe after it, but also

we talk about security. As you introduced our talk, you said we

have a border with Turkey. And there are no other European countries with

a border with Turkey. Imagine if we just opened the doors and all the

refugees - without being identified - to come through the territory of

Bulgaria and then go to wherever they want. Hang on a minute. It

seems there's a real contradiction here. You're telling me you support

the deal that has just been struck with Turkey, which includes the

notion that there will be visa-free travel for Turkey, a warm embrace of

Turkey, a speeding up of the accession process with Turkey. And

here you are saying, "Oh, my God, we've got a Turkish border, we're

very worried about it." I know you're deploying your army there,

you're building a new barbed wire fence. These things don't seem to

match. No, we are talking about legal and illegal immigration. So,

being with all these terrorist threats - and don't take me wrong,

I'm not saying that the migrants are terrorists or close to this term,

but we need to be vigilant. Because together, with people seeking for a

safe haven, some migrants would also like to do something bad. You look

at Turkey with a sense of apprehension and fear? No, I

wouldn't say so. We are good neighbours. We support each other.

Is that why you're building a barbed wire fence? Because we cannot

afford, with the Bulgarian guard forces, to have one guard every 50m

or 1 00m. So that's why we decided to build this facility - this is not

exactly a border - which will save human capacity. Otherwise we cannot,

from purely budgetary and admin administrative capacity reasons, we

cannot go with this any further. In all honesty, deputy prime minister,

do you believe it is right for Europe to speed up the accession

process with Turkey and, by the summer, talk about delivering

visa-free travel for all Turks into the European Union? Well, first of

all, when we talk about speeding up negotiations, still the open and

closed chapter needs to fulfil all the obligations and, also to abide

to the political criteria. And second, I think this is a step in

the right direction. This one will help tremendously the Turkish

society and also will make Europe more apprehensive to and to

understand better the needs of Turkey. Yeah. Let's then get back to

this notion that the deal, it is hoped, will stop the migration flow

from Turkey into European territory. I just wonder whether you are now

prepared to say to me - and we've talked about the shooting incident,

but there've been many other incidents too, and we can talk about

some of them, including police brutality, beatings, forcible

pushing offing mierance erants back over the border - I wonder whether

you would now acknowledge to me that it has been bad for Bulgaria's

reputation, what has happened over the last 6-9 months? I think to

single out Bulgaria having difficulties to pre vent the rules

over the border, it's not very fair. We have the same incidents, as you

said, in Hungary, for example, or in Austria, or in Germany, or in former

Republic of Yugoslavia, Macedonia... Nothing like the pervasive, systemic

use of violence and abusive practice against the refugees. I mean, it's

not me saying that, it's, for example, the Belgrade Centre for

Human Rights, which, in conjunction with Oxfam, did a detailed study of

people who had passed through Bulgaria and managed to make it into

Serbia. Of all the refugees they interviewed - from Syria, Iraq,

Afghanistan - all who had had contact with the Bulgarian police

reported abuse, extortion, robbery, physical violence, threats of

deportation, and police dog attacks. Well, I very much appreciate the

work of human rights activists, and this is their right and obligation

to raise the voice and to ring the bell. Isn't it your obligation to

respond to it, fruitfully, and to find out what went wrong, and to

make sure it doesn't happen anymore? Exactly. That's why we made a lot of

internal investigations among the police officers and we raised the

public aware ness what is right and what is wrong. Well, Bulgarian state

television broadcast from 2013 included interviews with members of

the border police who said their superiors had instructed them to

"beat refugees and send them back." This is completely wrong. This is

completely wrong. It can't be like this. If there is one single case if

people claimed for it, I believe that not only the minister, but also

the professional governors of the ministry, had taken note from this.

There's a phrase which has been used about not just Bulgaria, let's be

fair, but about some other...governments in Eastern

Europe. The phrase is "a compassion deficit." Now, I wonder whether you

would acknowledge that there is something about the attitude of East

European peoples, who feel themselves that they maybe are

suffering economically, that their lives are difficult, that the EU

hasn't maybe delivered them all of the promises that they'd hoped it

would deliver - that they don't really feel much compassion for

these migrants coming in from outside. Is that true? Well, you ask

me a quite psychological question. Mm. I don't want, first of all, to

have another border between - mental one - between West and East in

Europe. Do you think there is a bit of a division between...? Well, we

are closer to the conflict. When the conflict is just one border from

Turkey and you are obviously responsible to guard the entrance

into the European Union, you should perform. And actually what is a

viewed as a lack of policy is a lack of enforcement. Because we decided

once that we needed to have control of the European borders, and we

didn't manage. So instead of complaining that the big countries

like Germany, like Spain, like Italy should do more, the Eastern European

countries regained the control. Maybe not all the time quite

properly - actually, Bulgaria was not together before in respect of

rejecting quota. We accepted quota. You're not rejecting quotas. We

accepted quota. But we need to have equal treatment. And if it is

stipulated that we need to again control all our borders, it's tough.

It's really hard. But we need to do it. Well, this is HARDtalk. I'm

going to ask you another hard question. I wonder whether there is

an element of xenophobia, Islamophobia, in your government's

response to this migration challenge. I'm just looking at the

words of your prime minister, Mr Borissov - "I'm scared. The

Bulgarian people are scared. If only because of where religion is

concerned. After all, we are Christian and they are Muslim."

The Prime Minister should talk with the Bulgarian people and hear their

concerns. They do have concerns, and for the Prime Minister to speak up

instead of somebody else. Isn't it dangerous to legitimise this sort of

language? The Orthodox Church released a statement in bog area

saying the immigrant wave, courage, looks like an invasion. You only

have 30,000 refugees come in, and a small proportion have been given the

right to stay -- quote. The idea that it looks like an invasion is

nonsense. We live in a mediated society, and the moment you switch

on the TV and you start to watch that the refugees are coming, the

incident in Cologne in Germany or in other parts of Austria, or in

Macedonia, which is another order with us, people do feel this is

almost in their homes, and I very much insist on it. -- border. We

have populist parties in Bulgaria like everywhere in Europe, and I

stay very much behind the Prime Minister being outspoken. What

people think and what people fear, it means we need to face these

fears, and try to solve the problem. Are you scared? I think it is quite

scary that Europe... Use it is scary that very few thousand Muslim

refugees have come into your country? You think that is scary? I

think the fact we are not able to regain control of our borders, a

European borders, might be scary. I am especially looking now at this

clash of cultures your Prime Minister, your church, appear to be

encouraging as a perception inside your country. You need to take this

conversation in the context that we do have a Muslim when ready in

Bulgaria, and we do... Between ten and 13% of your own countrymen are

Muslim. Exactly, this is not about was them. This is about unmanageable

flow of refugees. -- not about Muslims. But he said we are

Christian, they are Muslim. It is odd when 13% of your own people are

Muslim. I think the Prime Minister was not talking about... Wrong? No,

he wasn't talking about this clash of different religions, but the

unknown are coming from outside. We are happy to live with Muslims for

centuries in Bulgaria. Just a final point, it interests me that you have

many posts as deputy Prime Minister, which is that you are also education

minister. You got the job after the last Minister essentially was fired

because he was proposing to change textbooks, to get rid of some of the

more inflammatory language suggesting that the Turks have held

Bulgaria in slavery for hundreds of years, that they have dominated and

enslaved your people. He was fired for trying to change the textbooks.

No, no, it is about... I would say mismanagement to explain to the

public what went wrong with the textbooks, and that is according to

our roles discussed publicly in for a long time to stop if this is not

done, of course... You are now education minister and we have

talked a lot about the EU's developing relationship with Turkey.

Do you think it is right and proper that Bulgarians are taught they were

held in slavery for hundreds of years by the Ottoman Turks? I think

you are very well briefed, but you need to know also our literature,

our history, and to know more about how many people just gave their

lives for the freedom and to have our own state. This reflects in our

liturgy and history, -- literature, and we need to say what we went

through. Let's talk now about Gary today. We reflected on the fact that

maybe your attitudes to the migration problem is somewhat

coloured by the fact that you are the poorest country in the European

Union -- let's talk about Bulgaria today. It was said to people at the

unhappiest in the EU. Why do you think will Gary's member ship of the

EU the last eight years or so has not delivered for the bull Gerri and

people? -- Bulgarian people. To manage expectations is one of the

most difficult tasks for a politician and for all of us. If we

expect a miracle to happen overnight and for bog area -- Bulgaria to be a

better place to live and work, it is not 100% fulfilled. And also the

European Union went into crisis almost immediately when Bulgaria

went into the union. We had the crisis with Russia and we were

totally affected by that. The financial crisis, which without

being guilty, to bet circumstances after this crisis. This is not the

happiest time per year. But maybe it is also because Bulgarians thought

it would improve governance. I fully recognise that as our own

responsibility. It has not worked. The latest commission report on

progress in Bulgaria and your corporation verification mechanism,

it is full of jargon, but the message is Bulgaria has to do a lot

more and make much more progress against corruption, organised crime,

and that Bulgaria is failing. Well, if you read carefully the report,

there are areas where Bulgaria is improving. But of course we still

have a lot to do. I think on anticorruption, pretty soon the good

news will come in Bulgaria. But it is a tough battle. Your government

tried to pass a law creating a new anticorruption authority and it was

rejected in Parliament. Yes. What does that tell us about the

systemic...? It is too strong maybe. I think they have been fears in

Parliament, and actually I introduced the bill, so they have

been kind of... There is reluctance to accept the law as I proposed and

the Council of ministers proposed because the parliamentarians thought

it might be which hunting, and this will be used as a political tool,

which never crossed my mind, of course. But now we have a second

attempt, and I hope this time the law will pass. Your president made a

speech earlier this year expressing big ambitions. That we have aspire

in Bulgaria to be part of the EU, part of the Schengen, in front and

centre in the heart of Europe, but it seems to me you are not on track

to achieve any of that. No, I think the opposite. We are on track to

achieve all of it. I believe Bulgaria is more than ready to join

Schengen, and we are ready to protect the European border, our

border. We are quite ready with all of the figures about our economy and

have been quite ready to join the euro, which is part of that treaty,

actually, and this will bring stability. We have a currency board,

and we implement the rules of discipline of the euro area. So I

think it is quite manageable in the next few years. So you want to fully

integrate in the European Union, and you are in London when the British

are occupied with the decision whether to leave the European Union

altogether. If we don't leave, David Cameron says he has negotiated a

deal which leases out of some of those integration projects. --

leaves us out. Do you think it is important written stays in? Yes, I

do. Why? -- written. I appreciate what you have in terms of experience

and to build panic -- diplomatic skills, and a similar market. I like

the idea of the single market. Not just to trade among the countries. I

think we are, you are, one of the forces for good in the European

Union, and I hope the British people will say yes when the moment comes.

Meglena Kuneva, thank you so much for joining me on HARDtalk. Thank

you. Well,

there is a lot happening on the