Episode 33: Lessons learned from communism

00:00:05: How was your last birthday party?

00:00:08: Do you remember how many people were there?

00:00:10: What you did?

00:00:12: Not so easy, is it?

00:00:14: Imagine it's not about your last birthday party, but decades ago.

00:00:19: But one man from Bulgaria has a vivid memory of his thirty-fourth birthday, more than thirty-six years ago.

00:00:27: It was the year, nineteen eighty-nine, the man, Dr Konstantin Trenchev.

00:00:41: We work Europe.

00:00:46: The podcast of the European Centre for Workers' Questions.

00:01:00: The story began two days before the party.

00:01:03: Trenchev met a political prisoner, who was the secretary general of Bulgaria's first human rights organisation.

00:01:11: And Trenchev was his doctor.

00:01:16: The secretary general started a hunger strike.

00:01:19: I went to see him in February.

00:01:21: I dialed the number of Radio Free Europe afterwards, and I told them, as a doctor that this man isn't well.

00:01:32: Back in early eighty-nine, being an activist in Bulgaria was still perceived as a threat to the regime, so you had to be careful, especially when talking to Western radio stations.

00:01:47: Two days later, it was my birthday.

00:01:49: I'm born in February, and this was a good motive for a meeting.

00:01:53: When I was with him conducting my medical procedures, we decided together to found a trade union.

00:02:02: Seven friends and their partners gathered at Dr Trenchev's house during his birthday party to found Podkriapa, Bulgarian for solidarity.

00:02:12: It's the first independent trade union the country has ever had and the second in Eastern Europe after Zoli Darnoš in Poland.

00:02:26: There was no plan on how to set up a trade union because the communists were not concerned about it and sure of their power.

00:02:34: They always presumed the workers would be with them and that's why there was no legislation that forbade the creation of independent unions.

00:02:42: We used that.

00:02:44: But of course, they didn't allow it afterwards.

00:02:46: We filed the documents at a court in Plovdiv.

00:02:50: Of course, they refused, but anyhow, we had declared the creation of an independent trade union.

00:02:56: And immediately after that, the repressions began.

00:03:05: Officially, there was already a trade union that was part of the Communist Party.

00:03:10: However, it wasn't a trade union as we understand it today.

00:03:14: In an ideological system based on the idea that workers and peasants are the ruling class, there is no need for social dialogue or collective bargaining, since the conditions should be perfect for everybody.

00:03:27: So, there has never been a real trade union before.

00:03:30: And because trade unions in the Western sense are in favour of co-determination and democracy in the workplace, they naturally pose a threat to a totalitarian system.

00:03:41: At the same time, trade unions are not like political parties, so their power is limited.

00:03:51: To declare oneself as a politician was much more dangerous, and men were afraid.

00:03:56: Trade unionism is something in between.

00:04:05: However, the government began to raid Dr Trenchef's house.

00:04:09: They tried to intimidate him and his family, and for bad gatherings of the trade unionists.

00:04:15: Podcriepa, at the same time, used Western radio stations, such as Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe, or the BBC, to communicate their ideas to thousands of people in the West.

00:04:28: In May, nineteen eighty-nine, six members of Podcriepa joined a hunger strike to protest the discrimination against ethnic Turks in Bulgaria.

00:04:37: This minority was severely oppressed by the system.

00:04:40: They had to change their names, they were forbidden to worship in their mosques, and finally, they were forbidden to speak Turkish.

00:04:50: They put us in prison, without any investigation or anything.

00:04:55: It wasn't like a real prison, but more like a detention centre for political dissidents and activists.

00:05:01: So for the whole summer we were arrested.

00:05:04: In Bulgaria, small protest groups began to form.

00:05:12: While the trade unionists were being imprisoned, the fall of the Soviet Empire had already begun.

00:05:19: Its decline became obvious.

00:05:21: In September, in one fell swoop, three countries offered me and my wife political exile because we were really being oppressed by the regime.

00:05:39: These were the United States, Germany and France.

00:05:43: And my wife left before the fall of the regime for France, and then the United States.

00:05:48: I stayed to see how she would adapt.

00:05:50: But the dictator had fallen in an internal communist coup.

00:05:54: And I stayed to form democracy.

00:05:56: For

00:05:56: twenty-six years.

00:06:01: The first free elections were held in nineteen ninety.

00:06:04: And these free elections came hand in hand with the democratization of the society.

00:06:10: And now trade unions such as Podcriepa could really start their work.

00:06:15: They were facing enormous challenges.

00:06:17: Dimitar Manolov is also one of the earliest members of Podcriepa.

00:06:21: And now it's president after Konstantin Trenchev stepped back in two thousand and fifteen.

00:06:27: The biggest challenge was we had no experience.

00:06:30: We had no knowledge what trade union movement is.

00:06:33: I can say below zero.

00:06:36: We had no idea what it is.

00:06:39: And after that, we started to organize ourselves.

00:06:42: We organized our professional organizations.

00:06:45: We organized our regional organizations.

00:06:49: After that, we started the process to make them work together, which was not very easy in these times because they're... You know, we can imagine all the people with their ambitions, everyone, there are so many people who wanted to be at the first throw of everything, you know.

00:07:09: Western trade unionists came into the country to help their counterparts, establishing a new system of social dialogue, which would be crucial for the EU accession talks later.

00:07:20: It was back in nineteen ninety-four that Bulgaria declared its intention to join the EU.

00:07:25: They wanted to join the European single market.

00:07:28: and be a part of the European family.

00:07:31: But it was precisely at this time that the prevailing opinion was that economic growth was more important than social equality and fair redistribution mechanisms.

00:07:41: Dimitar Manolov participated at these negotiations with the EU.

00:07:58: coordinator of our presentation in all the bodies we are presented in during the process of accession.

00:08:06: And he experienced the same euphoria as was felt in many of the countries that were about to join the EU.

00:08:13: He believed that a rapid alignment with Western Europe was at least within the realms of possibility.

00:08:19: Today he has regrets, especially when it comes to economic concessions to the EU.

00:08:25: According to this process, We were forced to close a nuclear power plant in Kuzlo, after the things which happened with Bulgarian agriculture, with the industry and whatsoever.

00:08:43: Now I'm not very sure that we did the best job.

00:08:47: Many industries were closed because they were not profitable enough.

00:08:51: According to Manolov, the agricultural sector suffered enormously from all the regulations imposed by the European Union.

00:08:59: Suddenly, Bulgarian farmers had the impression that bureaucrats in Brussels, thousands of kilometres away, decided which fertilisers Bulgarian farmers could use for their farms.

00:09:10: Once again, there was another force from outside telling them what to do.

00:09:14: And tensions rose.

00:09:16: At the same time, tensions within the EU rose.

00:09:20: The EU wanted to use this historic opportunity of enlargement to also deepen the integration of its member countries.

00:09:28: In the early two thousands, the time seemed to be right to take a huge step forward to establish and ratify a European constitution.

00:09:37: However, due to referendums in France and the Netherlands, the EU constitution of two thousand and four never became reality.

00:09:46: Gunther Verhoegen was the commissioner of the EU enlargement at this time.

00:09:54: In retrospect, I would also say that the whole dynamic that has characterized European integration for decades Namely, the simultaneous deepening and enlargement was broken off in two thousand and five.

00:10:07: This dynamic broke down in two thousand and five when Bulgaria and Romania would have had no chance of becoming members if the negotiations had not already been concluded and the date of accession had not already been decided.

00:10:22: This means.

00:10:23: The EU just accepted Romania and Bulgaria due to the political and social circumstances and zeitgeist at the time.

00:10:31: Not because of economic reasons or because they believed that the alignment to Western standards would be possible within twenty years.

00:10:40: So, naturally, and because of the seemingly more demanding interior problems, the EU didn't pay too much attention to its new members.

00:10:49: At the same time, people from Bulgaria were migrating to other EU countries, causing a massive depopulation, especially in rural areas.

00:10:58: Bulgaria lost twenty-five percent of its population between nineteen eighty-five and two thousand and twenty-five.

00:11:06: EU officials and experts don't deny these numbers, but they argue that this is not the EU's responsibility.

00:11:13: Because in any case, the economic situation in these countries has improved a lot.

00:11:17: In some CEE countries, Gross Domestic Product Quadrupled, Elmar Brock was an MEP and is considered one of the architects of the EU.

00:11:26: enlargement of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the

00:11:29: year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the year of the.

00:11:44: The social standards in such countries are combined to the economic situation of such a country.

00:11:53: The economic situation is now much, much better than twenty years ago, much, much better, or thirty years ago.

00:12:01: And therefore it's positive, but not so good as it is in Denmark.

00:12:07: This cannot be solved by the European Union.

00:12:10: It would therefore appear that the EU and the new accession countries of two thousand and four and two thousand and seven remain mired in numerous misunderstandings and differing ideas and have the lessons of communism, the early nineties and the EU crises of the early two thousands being learned.

00:12:29: Find out in the next episode.

00:12:37: If you have any interesting topics or feedback for us, just contact isa.org.

00:12:48: WeWorkEurope is the podcast from Isa, the European Centre for Workers' Questions, which receives financial support from the European Union.

00:12:56: This podcast was narrated by me, Rebecca Sharp.

00:13:01: Script and production by Escucha, Audio Identity.