A PUPPY FOR THE EMPEROR

Saturday 13 November. I drive to the center by Tsarigradsko shose and the police presence is amazing. There is nearly one in every tree. And a policeman on either side of the road every 20 meters, in an avenue of 6 km from downtown Sofia to the crossing with the airport gateway, are many policemen. There are also anti-riot vehicles and the center of the city is completely cordoned off to vehicular traffic, causing a massive traffic jam.

My first thought was Obama!, But this was impossible, at that time was in India with his “Asian Tour”. When I returned to the apartment and watched the news I realized what was happenning: Putin had come to sign an agreement to pass a Gazprom pipeline through Bulgaria.

The Friendly moment was that the Bulgarian Prime Minister gave his Russian counterpart a puppy and he was enthusiastic about it. The negative note was that the Russian Premier showed annoy because the continued manufacture of weapons in Bulgaria (Still producing AK-47 in Kazanlak) without respecting the patent and Russian license.




This event leads me to arise two questions:

1.-Two countries sign an agreement to pursue mutual benefit. One might think that Bulgaria, being within the European Union, also comes to the treaty to defend the European Community interest. But, taking in consideration the global economic situation we are involved, the question I ask is: Is it really like this?

At first glance, It seems to have had more significance this visit that when it came the Chancellor Merkel, which suggests that the "old links" of history are stronger than the "new links".

Do not forget that Russia is Russia. And for any bulgarian is easier than occidental people to understand, that Russia is a latent empire.

2.-If two parts sign a contract, they move, and movement is by definition positive. China makes a bridge in Serbia, Russia put a pipeline in Bulgaria, movement in infrastructure that result in greater economic movement.

I want to highlight these countries that having a socialist structure have been converted (for better or for worse) into a giant, massive enterprise. We're talking about a combination of natural resources, labor and capital to such large scales, joined together with an economic management criteria rather than politics. They form (in the case of China, will form in the case of Russia) economic invincible monsters. We don´t know yet if they stand on feet of clay.

So the second question is: If we maximize the resources of each country, maximize the ability of workers, improve labor competitiveness by providing advanced education, increase social advantages, adjust the productive sectors to country's real capacity, increase quality and quantity of products and services offered, etc. .. Don´t we need rather than political people, general managers? To put it in a less radical way: Do we need politics or business management (understanding this in larger scale)? Should not be the demonstrated ability to manage the criterion for choosing our leaders?

We must not forget that the ultimate goal is "a sustained increase in movement”, another way to say that we have to increase production and competitiveness.

Any situation of either erroneous measures, complacency, paternalism, negligence or self-relaxation (business demons all of them) should be prevented and avoided.

We should take action to return to the growing path again, because now, we only look like a puppy at the mercy of giants.