An Interview with H.E. Ms Monika Ilieva, P.R. of the Republic of Bulgaria to the UN GA

On 26th of May, the Interceptor had an opportunity to meet with H. E. Ms Monika Ilieva, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Bulgaria to the United Nations General Assebly. We discussed about the last session and about informal meeting - “Tasting the European Union” – which Bulgaria and other European states hosted a day before.

The Interceptor: You are one of the states who organized an informal meeting on Thursday (Tasting the European Union). What was the main purpose of the gathering?

Ms Ilieva: Actually we were one of the main initiators of this gathering. We thought that as the other states in the simulation we, the European Union’s members states have also unique culture, something we are proud of, and something we wanted to show to other delegations.

The Interceptor: Were you in some kind of a coalition with other delegations who also host the event?

Ms Ilieva: We always tended to have good relations with the delegations of the others EU’s members. On the third session “Colonisation of Outer Space” as well as the second one “Antarctica as a potential CHM” we collaborated with Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Sweden, Finland and other European states since we believed we had similar national interests especially as a part of the EU. On the last session ”Diversity management” we started collaborating with Italy, but then we divided, since our interest did not meet theirs, so it was not possible to continue this collaboration.

Permanent Representatives of Italy, Bulgaria, Finland and Germany

The Interceptor: As we could seen, not many delegations attended the gathering. How do you feel about that?

Ms Ilieva: Well, we do not want to take it personally. We believe that the delegations had various reasons to not come to our gathering. Or maybe they just followed their national strategy and wanted to make some symbolic gesture, who knows. We can not blame them, it is their job.

The Interceptor: Were you able to change the perception/vision/position of some delegations during the informal meeting?

Ms Ilieva: We talked with some of them. However we believe that the delegations follow their national interests and sometimes it is very hard to change their position. Our position as a smaller state can not influence as much as some other states however we can say that we have tried.

The Interceptor: Last Thursday you adopted the second Resolution on the topic of diversity management. In general, are you satisfied with the decisions you agree upon?

Ms Ilieva: Actually we voted against on this Resolution since we believe it was something we can not agree as a whole, regarding to our national policy. However we made some amendments together with Turkey and Russia, since we have similar background regarding to the topic of national minorities.

The Interceptor: Are you, as the representative of Bulgaria, satisfied with the results of this year sessions?

Ms Ilieva: Yes, we are satisfied with the results. We achieved most of our objectives and also made a common ground on investment bilateral treaties with some of the countries which is very important part of our national strategy.

The Interceptor: Do you as the representative of developing state think, that states in development have been heard enough during the sessions or were international powers again the main players of the game?

Ms Ilieva: We can definitely say that some of the delegations who were representing the developing and underdeveloped states did a great job. We were heard by the developed countries, but we can not say that there was big progress or “real” political will to pass the obstacles and have a fruitful debate even if our ideas were heard.