Reinventing Europe: Bulgaria and the anxieties of incomplete membership

The financial crisis in Europe has exposed a certain inferiority complex regarding Bulgaria’s position within the EU. As the EU’s poorest member Bulgaria sees the Union as the surest way to improve its economic position (and its people see Brussels as a corrective to the inadequacies of domestic politics). But is also aware that its links to Greece, the fall-out from the euro crisis more generally, and a reputational problem over the efficiency of the country’s government and corruption might deny it the full benefits enjoyed by previous joiners of the EU. Bulgaria has striven to demonstrate that it justifies its membership, for instance through financial discipline. Despite this it is caught in a anxiety-inducing position of apparently incomplete membership, without the time to absorb the benefits of EU accession before the euro crisis hit.