Gas crisis should refocus the EU’s priorities
Bulgaria was one of the countries worst affected by the gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine. What lessons are there for Bulgaria to learn?
Experts & Staff
Vessela Tcherneva
Deputy Director
Areas of expertise
EU foreign policy; Western Balkans and Black Sea regions; transatlantic relations; regional studies; energy
Languages
Bulgarian, English, German, Russian
Biography
Vessela Tcherneva is deputy director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. Her topics of focus include EU foreign policy and the Western Balkans and Black Sea region.
Between January and July 2022, she held the position of Foreign Policy Advisor to the Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov. 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.
On The Periphery Of The New World Order
When Barack Obama enters the White House as president in January 2009, what will change for the Balkans?
An overly comfortable limbo
Like Greece and Macedonia itself, the EU is too willing to accept Macedonia?s state of limbo
Where does Russia?s ?sphere of influence? end?
Russia?s NATO and EU ambassadors push Moscow?s ?spheres of influence? into the EU starting with ?age-old ally? Bulgaria
In the media
Trump is not interested in Bulgarian democracy and will in no way help to restore institutions or to take back the captured state
Vesela Tcherneva comments on one year since the Hamas terrorist carnage in Israel, the warning from the European Commission to Sofia, the danger of an orbanocracy in Bulgaria, whether a shock such as the reinstatement of visas is necessary for Bulgarians to see the threat to democracy and its values
I don’t think there will be an increase in hostilities. Rather, we need to see who will step into the vacuum in South Lebanon
Vessela Tcherneva comments on the situation in the Middle East and Israel’s operation in Lebanon
There is a gap in the next few weeks in which, if the decision on the admission of Bulgaria and Romania in Schengen on land is voted, this issue will be closed once and for all
Vessela Tcherneva comments on the possibility for Bulgaria to join Schengen fully in the coming weeks
Vessela Tcherneva on the success of Austria’s Freedom party and the implications for Bulgaria
If Moscow’s goal in this war is to destroy the statehood of Ukraine, then the idea of peace talks is very difficult to achieve
Vessela Tcherneva commented on Zelenski’s last night’s statement and the three points he stressed