Experts & Staff

Vessela Tcherneva

Deputy Director
Head, ECFR Sofia

Areas of expertise

EU foreign policy; Western Balkans and Black Sea regions; transatlantic relations; regional studies; energy

Languages

Bulgarian, English, German, Russian

Biography

– on sabbatical –

Vessela Tcherneva is deputy director of the European Council on Foreign Relations and head of ECFR’s Sofia office. Her topics of focus include EU foreign policy and the Western Balkans and Black Sea region.

From 2010 to 2013, she was the spokesperson for the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a member of Foreign Minister Nickolay Mladenov’s political cabinet. Previously, she was secretary of the International Commission on the Balkans, chaired by former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato and former German President Richard von Weizsäcker; supervising editor of the Foreign Policy Bulgaria magazine; and political officer at the Bulgarian Embassy in Washington, DC. Tcherneva holds an MA in Political Science from the Rhienische Friedrich-Wilhelm Universität in Bonn.

Contact

Download photo
Barbed wire in front of a police car in North Mitrovica
28 Oct

Kosovo-Serbia Relations: The Circle of (Dis)Trust and (Un)Equality /Belgrade Security Forum 2021/

After more than eleven years of the EU facilitated dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, this process could be described as “one step forward, two steps back”. The seriousness of challenges that constantly emerge in relations between Kosovo and Serbia shows that despite the goodwill and dedication of the Western stakeholders, domestic democratic capacities, nationalistic politics, geopolitics, and third players hinder the possibility of reaching a comprehensive solution.

Pandemic trends: Serbia looks east, Ukraine looks west

  • Joanna Hosa, Vessela Tcherneva
  • Commentary

Public attitudes in Ukraine and Serbia raise pressing questions about EU enlargement. If member states are to sustain this process, they will need to base it on a shared sense of belonging

How the EU should respond to Belarus

  • Podcast
  • Mark Leonard's World in 30 minutes

What will be the impact of the EU and US measures against Belarus? And what should be next steps also ahead of the EU-US summit on 15 June? 

Belarus’s brutal politics

  • Podcast
  • Mark Leonard's World in 30 minutes

What kind of implications do the developments in Belarus have for the wider neighbourhood and Europe?

Publications

European Foreign Policy Scorecard 2016

  • Susi Dennison (ed.)
  • Publication

The sixth ECFR Foreign Policy Scorecard highlights the EU’s diminishing ability to influence its neighbours, and the neighbourhood’s growing impact on the EU

Rebooting EU Foreign Policy

  • François Godement, Mark Leonard, Daniel Levy, Kadri Liik, Vessela Tcherneva, Nick Witney
  • Publication

The EU is ill-equipped to respond to foreign policy crises

Articles

Pandemic trends: Serbia looks east, Ukraine looks west

  • Joanna Hosa, Vessela Tcherneva
  • Commentary

Public attitudes in Ukraine and Serbia raise pressing questions about EU enlargement. If member states are to sustain this process, they will need to base it on a shared sense of belonging

The end of tit-for-tat politics in Bulgaria

  • Vessela Tcherneva
  • Commentary

In an environment in which European and American interests are not always the same, it is short-sighted and dangerous for Bulgarian leaders to question their country’s geopolitical alignment

How Biden can make a big difference in the Western Balkans

  • Engjellushe Morina, Vessela Tcherneva
  • Commentary

Joe Biden has a longstanding relationship with the Western Balkans. A re-energised US policy on the region could be transformative, especially when working in tandem with the EU

Hashim Thaci should resign

  • Carl Bildt, Vessela Tcherneva
  • View from the Council

The indictment for war crimes against Kosovo President Hassim Thaci helpfully upends the poorly conceived US initiative to reconcile Serbia and Kosovo. But it fatally delegitimates Kosovo’s current leadership.

Podcasts

How the EU should respond to Belarus

  • Podcast
  • Mark Leonard's World in 30 minutes

What will be the impact of the EU and US measures against Belarus? And what should be next steps also ahead of the EU-US summit on 15 June? 

Belarus’s brutal politics

  • Podcast
  • Mark Leonard's World in 30 minutes

What kind of implications do the developments in Belarus have for the wider neighbourhood and Europe?

Europe’s role in America’s election

  • Podcast
  • Mark Leonard's World in 30 minutes

How will and can Europeans react in the event of a post-election chaos in the US? The election day is fast approaching yet the outcome still…

The first beneficiaries of 1989

  • Podcast
  • Mark Leonard's World in 30 minutes

Host Mark Leonard has an intimate discussion with our heads of offices from Sofia and Warsaw, Vessela Tcherneva and Piotr Buras about their experiences, hopes…

How to deal with our Western Balkan neighbours?

  • Podcast
  • Mark Leonard's World in 30 minutes

North Macedonia and Albania wanted to start negotiations with the EU after having been candidate countries since 2005 and 2014. But the enlargement plans seemed…

Macedonian referendum: What happens next?

  • Podcast
  • Mark Leonard's World in 30 minutes

Mark Leonard speaks with Vessela Tcherneva and Robert Cooper about the contested result and how it might be solved. Bookshelf: Carnegie report on…

Macron: one year on

  • Podcast
  • Mark Leonard's World in 30 minutes

Mark Leonard speaks with Manuel Lafont Rapnouil, Almut Möller and Vessela Tcherneva, about what has changed in French foreign policy with Macron one year in…

European Reactions to Macron’s Victory

  • Podcast
  • Mark Leonard's World in 30 minutes

This week, rather than putting out our ordinary podcast, we're leaving the floor to Manuel Lafont Rapnouil, head of ECFR Paris, who's hosting a discussion…

Events

Barbed wire in front of a police car in North Mitrovica
28 Oct

Kosovo-Serbia Relations: The Circle of (Dis)Trust and (Un)Equality /Belgrade Security Forum 2021/

After more than eleven years of the EU facilitated dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina, this process could be described as “one step forward, two steps back”. The seriousness of challenges that constantly emerge in relations between Kosovo and Serbia shows that despite the goodwill and dedication of the Western stakeholders, domestic democratic capacities, nationalistic politics, geopolitics, and third players hinder the possibility of reaching a comprehensive solution.

16 Dec

NATO in a multipolar world

  • Online
  • ECFR Sofia

The European Council on Foreign Relations is delighted to invite you to a discussion on the role of the NATO in a world of revived geopolitical competition with a focus on the potential of the transatlantic alliance

In the media