One of Bulgaria’s top businessmen has called for Balkan countries to form a union to defend against a potential Turkish invasion of Europe. Vasil Vasilev said that the supposedly “tolerant” and “solidarity”-loving European Union (EU) could not be relied on to protect the Balkans if “hundreds of thousands of so-called refugees” from Turkey descend on them.

The businessman and philanthropist recommended that Bulgaria form a union with other Balkan countries who would be threatened by Turkish moves to expand their territory and influence.

He said: “These are mostly Bulgaria and Greece, as well as Serbia and Macedonia. They should form some kind of a union to stop the Turkish threat and this may be the most reliable thing we can count on.”

Speaking in Sofia, the Vassilevi Brothers Foundation chairman said that “Bulgaria should not have any doubts that the Europeans will hand [the country] to Turkey.”

Mr. Vasilev contended that the EU’s professed values of “tolerance and pan-European solidarity” do not exist except when it suits the wishes of the people ruling the bloc.

Because of this, Mr. Vasilev said Bulgarians could not rely on NATO nor the EU for protection in the case of a Turkish invasion of the country.

The businessman told FOCUS radio: “I think that we cannot count on neither NATO nor on the EU. I am convinced that neither of these organisations will lift a finger to protect the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bulgaria in case of aggressive actions or even in case of a mass invasion of hundreds of thousands of so-called refugees or migrants from Turkey.”

Mr Vasilev said a horde of migrants from Turkey descending on Bulgaria “will be practically some kind of Bashi-Bazouk, and will do the same job a military operation would do.”

The Bashi-Bazouk, forces loyal to the Ottoman Turks, slaughtered thousands of Bulgarians in the Batak Massacre, in 1876. Senior Western figures like Bill Clinton have criticised countries like Hungary and Poland for rejecting mass Muslim immigration, but have not perhaps recognised the recent and more far-reaching history in these nations which gives rise to scepticism over mass migration.

Ottoman Turks occupied the country for 500 years, levying various taxes on Bulgarians such as jizya, the Islamic tax demanded from non-Muslims living under Muslim rule. The most infamous of these was the “blood tax”, which saw Ottoman Turks remove every fifth male child from Bulgarians families to serve in their army.