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The process of Bulgaria's EU integration is a
multifaceted political, institutional, economic, socio-structural,
and psychological process. It is essentially a complex social
transformation aimed at establishing particular public structures,
standards, consensual attitudes, and strategies, compatible with EU
and acceptable to its member countries. This process involves
diverse actors who cannot be reduced solely to the efforts of state
institutions and above all, of the legislature and the executive.
One of the most powerful, though frequently overlooked, channels
bringing Bulgaria closer to EU, are political parties.
The inclusion of political parties in the domestic political
process cannot be reduced exclusively or primarily to the time in
which they exercise executive power. In opposition or even outside
parliament, political parties can still occasionally exert
considerable influence over the conditions in which foreign policy
is conceived and implemented. Parties can sometimes be an
exceptionally important source for Bulgaria's international image
which strongly influences the positions of the country's
international partners, and in particular, the EU member states, in
terms of Bulgaria's accession to EU.
Political parties, along with everything else, have several
essential functions immediately related to Bulgaria's integration
in EU:
- they are very frequently the channels for the
introduction of European po-litical standards in Bulgarian
politics;
- they represent the Bulgarian political palette of
strategies and ideas;
- they create an additional lobby network among the
EU political class in favor of Bulgaria's accession;
- they are in position to structure political life in
Bulgaria in line with EU standards.
That is why the study of the role of political parties in the
process of Bulgaria's EU integration is an essential element of the
conception of a general idea, and theoretical model, of the
process. In theoretical terms, parties are part of the political
system and a connecting link between the political, and civil,
society. Their role in foreign policy is typically related to
positions of power. But the in-ternationalization of party life in
the past decade has provided parties with new opportunities for
participation in the foreign political process. In Bulgarian
political life parties are an important, if not the chief,
instrument for assimilation of foreign political experience. Their
activity as international actors, their international contacts, the
international forums organized by them, are an irreplaceable
channel through which public opinion in Bulgaria gets informed
about foreign political standards, about the rules and norms of
political life in EU countries, for instance.
Naturally, the influence of parties on the foreign policy and
international image of a given country is a function of its
political system and above all, of the role, status, and functions
of political parties within it. Since 1989 Bulgaria has developed a
"European" type of party system, in which political organizations
are institutional structures striving to represent politically
significant social interests. Under this model, parties are
involved in the domestic political process as representatives of a
certain part of public opinion. In the U.S., along with that
function, parties are involved in foreign policy mainly through the
influence they have in various foundations which sponsor projects
and research institutions. In a sense, the American party-system
model is based more on the "expert" participation of political
parties in the foreign policy making. In Bulgaria there are few
elements of expert participation of parties in the foreign
political process, though certain "think tanks", related in some
form or other to political parties, do exert some influence,
largely through developing and presenting before foreign partners
alternatives to government policies.
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