Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolay Mladenov was set Monday afternoon to inform his European Union colleagues on the results of his country’s probe into the 19 July 2012 bus bombing in Burgas which killed five Israeli tourists and the Bulgarian driver.
Two weeks ago, Bulgarian Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov named Hezbollah as being behind the terrorist attack.
But according to diplomatic sources in Brussels, where the 27 EU Foreign Ministers met, Bulgaria will not ask for action from his colleagues at this stage.
"The Bulgarian Foreign Minister will brief his colleagues but we don’t expect any decision today," a Bulgarian diplomatic source told EJP, referring to calls for the EU to add Hezbollah on its list of terror groups.
"The EU ministers will probably analyse the Bulgarian report before taking any decision, which can take some time," another source said.
Any decision to blacklist the Lebanese Shiite group needs the unanimity of the 27 member states.
Arriving in Brussels for the start of the Foreign Affairs Council, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton confirmed the Bulgarian FM had “asked to make a statement about the ongoing situation” regarding Hezbollah, as she committed to looking “very carefully at what he says and what the issues now are”.
According to the Bulgarian press, Mladenov on Monday denied earlier reports that the country has called for an EU labeling Hezbollah a terrorist organization.
“We believe the attack that happened in Burgas last year was organized by people connected to the military wing of Hezbollah,” he said. "But some EU members think that Hezbollah should be included in the terror list, some think this should be done only with respect to its military wing, still others prefer individual sanctions," he told Bulgaria's Focus Information Agency.
He added that the debate on the EU level is in its initial phases and it is too early to call for a specific decision, which according to him must be reached via consensus.
"The EU has different options for action, but inaction is not an open option," the minister said.
According to Mladenov, "a coherent EU strategy with respect to Hezbollah is the only possible way to prevent future threats for security in the EU."
“We in Europe need to take collective measures to make sure that such attacks will never happen again on EU soil, that we are protected as the EU,” he said.
“We must send a strong message to the rest of the world that activities like this are unacceptable, no matter where they are planned or executed,” he added.
The EU has so far denied calls to review its classification of Hezbollah due to the high emphasis it places on the group's political activity in Lebanon.