Why did the EU accept authoritarianism in Bulgaria but object to it in Belarus?

This is the second part of a two-part discussion on Europe’s growing authoritarian tendencies, especially in Eastern Europe. We’ll talk about the West’s hypocritical and selective response to this phenomenon in this segment.
The EU, in particular, appears to have gotten everything wrong in the summer and early fall of 2020. While people in Bulgaria were on the streets every day for nearly half a year, they received almost no support from any EU institutions, with the exception of a rather routine hearing in the European Parliament in such cases. However, in Belarus, which is not a member of the EU, European governments have invested heavily, and the mainstream media has been drumming up interventionist rhetoric 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They, of course, failed in the end.
Why has the EU spent so much time and money supporting the regime change in Belarus, where they were bound to fail, but not helping the protesters in Bulgaria, where they could have made a real difference? In this panel featuring Maria Cernat, Malgorzata Kulbaczewska, Vladimir Mitev, and Boyan Stanislavski, learn more about authoritarianism in Europe from The Barricade and The Analysis.

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