The Ministry of Interior admitted that it expects a "massive flow of (crossing) refugees" if an armed conflict were to erupt.
The Minister of Finance, Milen Velchev, intends to present to the Council of Ministers detailed damage scenarios based on a hike in the price of oil to $40 per barrel and a 3-4 months long confrontation. He admitted to the Bulgarian National Radio that inflation is likely to increase by at least 1-1.5 percentage points.
The daily cost of a single 150-member biological and chemical defense unit stationed in the Gulf would amount to $15,000, or c. $500,000 per month, said the Bulgarian news agency, BTA. The Minister of Defense, Nikolai Svinarov, told the Cabinet that he expects "maximum (American) funding and logistical support" for the Bulgarian troops. The United States intends to base c. 400 soldiers-technicians and 18 planes on the country's soil and will pay for making use of the infrastructure, as they have done during operation "Enduring Freedom" (the war in Afghanistan).
Bulgaria stands to benefit in other ways. The country's Deputy Foreign
Minister, Lyubomir Ivanov, confirmed in another radio interview that
the Americans pledged that Iraqi debts to Bulgaria will be fully paid.
This can amount to dozens of millions of US dollars in fresh money.
Is this Bulgaria's price? Unlikely. Bulgaria, like the other countries of the region, regards America as the first among equals in NATO. The EU is perceived in east Europe as a toothless, though rich, club, corrupted by its own economic interests and inexorably driven by its bloated bureaucracy.
The EU and its goodwill and stake in the region are taken for granted - while America has to be constantly appeased and mollified.
Still, the members of the Vilnius Groups have misconstrued the signs of the gathering storm: the emerging European rapid deployment force and common foreign policy; the rapprochement between France and Germany at the expense of the pro-American but far less influential Britain, Italy and Spain; the constitutional crisis setting European federalists against traditional nationalists; the growing rupture between "Old Europe" and the American "hyperpower".
The new and aspiring members of NATO and the EU now face a moment of truth and are being forced to reveal their hand. Are they pro-American, or pro-German (read: pro federalist Europe)? Where and with whom do they see a common, prosperous future? What is the extent of their commitment to the European Union, its values and its agenda?
The proclamations of the European eight (including the three central European candidates) and the Vilnius Ten must have greatly disappointed Germany - the unwavering sponsor of EU enlargement. Any further flagrant siding with the United States against the inner core of the EU would merely compound those errors of judgment. The EU can punish the revenant nations of the communist bloc with the same dedication and effectiveness with which it has hitherto rewarded them. Ask Israel, it should know.