2011: A Little of the European Union, Lots of Bulgaria

In 2011 the tough reforms aimed at overcoming the economic crisis in European Union (EU) member countries caused the Bulgarian media to focus on national efforts in the implementation of community policies. For comparison: in 2009 and 2010 the EU was represented on Bulgarian news portals as the main engine in the conduct of national policies.

Last year the Bulgarian government’s urgent measures to cope with the economic crisis shifted the focus of media attention away from the country’s interaction with EU institutions. That is why the main tendency in the media was towards reporting the government’s efforts and successes without analyzing their efficiency in the context of the European crisis. Specialized online media were the only ones that tried to create conditions for objective analysis and active criticism.

The key event in Bulgaria in 2011 was the presidential and local government elections held on 23 and 30 October. The main tendency in the coverage of European issues on Bulgarian news sites and in specialized internet media was towards ‘nationalization’ (Tsaneva 2011).

According to Trenz’s definition, nationalization in the construction of European messages in the public sphere consists in the saturation with articles focusing on national issues with reference to one or several European sub-issues (Trenz 2004: 296-297). This was the picture in Bulgarian online media in 2011. They followed the tendencies in the Bulgarian press towards focusing on the successful launch or completion of infrastructure projects by the government. Such events were represented in the media as the government’s major success.

The government publicized its achievements in the economic sphere which were expected to have a long-term effect. The dialogue on social issues that caused tensions was conducted within the strategic framework of urgent actions. The media played down certain results of EU membership that were contrary to the expectations of the Bulgarian public: rising unemployment, falling or unchanged income levels, low competitiveness, declining media freedom. This applies also to the period after the elections, as noted by Open Society Institute experts (Nikolova 2011).

The news focus remained ‘concentrated on the main political figures’ (Kutseva 2011). Community policies that were not directly relevant to the solution of domestic political and economic issues entered the news by way of the Bulgarian officials in the EU – namely, Kristalina Georgieva, Member of the European Commission, and Bulgarian members of the European Parliament (Tsaneva 2011). The work of Bulgarian MEPs rarely topped the news even in the specialized media.

European issues were present with a different intensity in media coverage of the presidential and local election campaigns. The significance of this subject grew during the second round of the elections. And although the election for mayors and local councillors was regarded as secondary in significance to the presidential campaign, the issue of the successful absorption of European funds was a key issue in the local elections. This aspect of the campaign significantly contributed to some victories (in Sofia and Plovdiv) and losses (in Vidin and Sliven) of the ruling GERB party.

European support turned out to be a significant factor in the construction of a positive image of the top presidential candidates: Rosen Plevneliev (GERB), Ivaylo Kalfin (BSP) and Meglena Kuneva (independent). The public image of the top three contenders for the presidency was formed at two levels – through news, reports and interviews with the candidates themselves, and through public support, including informal support, from foreign politicians. The increased frequency of news and decrease in analytical articles on European issues led to the observation that the debates between the candidates were conducted of necessity, and not for the purpose of accumulating different opinions and developing supra-national policies. The presence of leaders of main European institutions in their capacity as politicians at various events in Bulgaria was interpreted in a rather arbitrary manner by part of the media. For example, terms such as ‘Europe’s right-wing elite’ and ‘EU’ were used synonymously in media discourses.

The top two presidential candidates confirmed the pre-election priorities of their political parties: building infrastructure in the case of GERB, and social security in the case of the BSP. One new issue that was introduced by Ivaylo Kalfin, the left-wing presidential candidate, was that of shale gas exploration and extraction. Meglena Kuneva presented herself as ‘the voice of the people’ with authority among Bulgarian civil society. She placed emphasis on what were seen as European moral and political values. Unlike the 2009 parliamentary elections, the Euroscepticism of other presidential candidates did not attract the attention of the media and the electorate.

According to the Standard Eurobarometer 75 conducted in the spring of 2011, as many as 60% of all Bulgarians trust the EU, and only 30% trust the national government. Given this level of trust in European institutions, it is obvious why the formal and friendly European support for Plevneliev and Kalfin as presidential candidates turned out to be the highest budget item in their campaigns. The election ended with a victory for the GERB party. The international media acclaimed the election of Plevneliev – for example, Le Figaro presented the newly elected president as ‘Mr Clean, a Bulgarian who thinks like a German’.

For the EU, 2011 turned out to be a year of challenges, the most obvious of which was the economic crisis, and the most serious the danger of declining confidence in the European project as the better, and in the Bulgarian case, the only possibility for national and personal prosperity. Nationalization in the coverage of European issues is likely to increase in 2012. This forecast is based on the expectations of a difficult recovery from the economic crisis and of growing social tensions. That is why Bulgarian online media will probably continue reporting how urgent measures for economic recovery are being taken, instead of paying attention to the possibilities for effective dialogue with citizens on supra-national policies, which are also a problem for the EU itself. The economic crisis, however, will be conducive to abandoning the expectation of magical results with which EU membership is often associated.

References

Kutseva, Gergana (2011). Partiynata okraska – siguren vhod kam mediite. Sofia: Foundation Media Democracy.

Nikolova, Desislava (2011). Byudzhet i reformi. Politiki. Sofia: Open Society Institute, Vol. 12(11).

Standard Eurobarometer 75 (2011).

Trenz, Hans-Jörg (2004). Media Coverage on European Governance: Exploring the European Public Sphere in National Quality Newspapers. European Journal of Communication, 19(3): 291-319.

Tsaneva, Maya (2011). The Government and EU Affairs in Internet Media Discourse: A Comparative Analysis of Official and Independent Views. In: Lozanov, Georgi and Orlin Spassov (eds.) Media and Politics. Sofia: Foundation Media Democracy, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.