Bulgaria at the ballot box again: should the EU be concerned?

Following mass protests that brought down Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov’s government in December of last year, Bulgarians will once again head to the polls on Sunday, 19 April. Since 2021, Bulgaria has been embroiled in a political crisis, with seven general elections held in the last five years. Even Zhelyazkov, who was Bulgaria’s longest-serving prime minister since the start of the crisis, only served for slightly over a year. The looming question now is whether the upcoming elections have the potential to jolt Bulgaria from its political paralysis.

In the Bulgarian system, political parties are required to beat a 4% electoral threshold to achieve parliamentary representation. Historically, this means that the number of groups represented have been relatively small. Since 2021, however, at least six parties have managed to pass the threshold in all of the seven elections held. After the latest elections in October 2024, this number rose to nine.

This time, however, opinion polls are pointing to a new configuration. As only five parties are projected to win more than 4% of votes, could a less fragmented parliament provide more opportunities for alignment between parliamentary groups, and produce a more stable coalition to lead Bulgaria out of its crisis?

As usual, centre-right GERB, liberal PP-DB, minority-oriented DPS and nationalist Revival are projected to beat the threshold. But a new contender, the recently established Progressive Bulgaria (PB) coalition, led by former president Rumen Radev, is projected to win the upcoming election over the more established parties. In fact, opinion polls are projecting that almost a third of all votes will go to PB – a percentage that no party has achieved since before the start of the political crisis.

This might come as no surprise to those familiar with Bulgaria’s political landscape. Since the turn of the century, new parties, led by a popular leader, have a track record of performing very well in their first election. In 2001, for example, Simeon II, Bulgaria’s formerly exiled tsar, led a newly established party to an electoral win and assumed the role of prime minister. In  2009, former Mayor of Sofia Boyko Borissov, achieved the same feat with GERB. Recent examples also include ITN’s victory in April 2021 when, led by singer and TV host Slavi Trifonov, the party placed second in its first attempt before winning the next election in July. Afterwards, PP, led by former caretaker ministers Kiril Petkov and Assen Vassilev, won the November 2021 election, eventually leading to a short-lived Petkov government.

New parties and their charismatic leaders usually come with promises of change and anti-establishment policies, resonating with many frustrated Bulgarians. Now, a large number of voters appear to have recognised their new ‘saviour’ in the face of Radev. He has promised to work against corruption and oligarchy, and towards economic development and modernisation – ideas that appeal to disenchanted Bulgarians – while also staying relatively ambiguous on more divisive topics. And although this might look like the typical catch-all populist rhetoric that often wins elections in Bulgaria, there is something different about Progressive Bulgaria and its leader that warrants Brussels’ attention.

In the evening of 30 March, current caretaker prime-minister Andrey Gyurov signed a 10-year agreement with Ukraine on security, intelligence and energy collaboration. In a social media post immediately following the announcement, Rumen Radev labelled the agreement a “risk for national security” and accused Gyurov of involving Bulgaria in a war. This was not the first time the leader of Progressive Bulgaria has raised some eyebrows over his comments on the conflict between Ukraine and Russia and Bulgaria’s position vis-à-vis these states. As early as 2021, when he was running for a second term as President, Radev sparked controversy by stating that “Crimea is Russian” during a televised debate ahead of the election. From the start of the conflict in 2022, in fact, he has opposed sanctions on Moscow and attempted to block aid to Ukraine. More recently, Radev was an advocate for holding a referendum on Bulgaria’s accession to the Eurozone and was strongly opposed to adopting the euro before confirming whether the move enjoyed sufficient popular support.

In contrast to Radev’s prior statements, Progressive Bulgaria’s current electoral campaign stresses Bulgaria’s belonging in EU and NATO. It advocates for the country to adopt a more important role within these institutions’ decision-making processes. Radev’s comments, however, continue to raise questions over Progressive Bulgaria’s intentions. Since the coalition is leading in the polls, what matters is how it approaches the government-formation process that will follow. One option would be to seek a partnership with fellow anti-oligarch and anti-corruption parties, with PP-DB being the obvious candidate. However, these two parties have clashed significantly during the election campaign, making a potential coalition increasingly unlikely. Furthermore, differences in foreign policy might be difficult to overcome, as PP-DB is known for being pro-Western and pro-European.

The second option could be a coalition with other conservative, vaguely anti-European formations, also known for their favourable views regarding Moscow. On that front, Revival could be a suitable partner, with BSP, whose presence in the new National Assembly is a toss-up according to latest polls, also emerging as a potential option.

Depending on the results of the upcoming election and the subsequent negotiations, Bulgaria’s political paralysis could finally come to an end. Whether this would be beneficial or problematic for the European Union, however, remains a mystery. The recent Hungarian election, which saw Viktor Orbán ousted after 16 years in power and replaced by pro-European challenger Péter Magyar, has already demonstrated how quickly political dynamics in central and eastern Europe can shift. Against this backdrop, Brussels should be following Bulgaria’s vote closely, as another political realignment in the region could further reshape the balance between Eurosceptic and pro-European forces within the EU’s eastern flank.

Looking ahead, the European Union should increase its efforts to tackle Eurosceptic narratives in its member states (as well as candidate states), as election results time and again confirm that populist parties are on the rise across the continent. Combatting disinformation, particularly on social media platforms, is becoming increasingly important and the EU must increase its efforts to protect its citizens online, which would also help mitigate the rise of Eurosceptic forces.

In the specific case of Bulgaria, one particular instance when populist narratives could have been tackled was ahead of the country’s accession to the Eurozone. The information campaign organised by the EU and the Bulgarian National Bank lacked visibility and was unable to dispel populist narratives on social media that polarised public opinion. And while Eurosceptic forces consistently manage to reach the masses, pro-European information campaigns do not.

Brussels must up its efforts to connect with regular citizens, informing them of the positives that EU membership brings, and how they can get even more out of it, for instance by incentivising participation in its initiatives and the regular public consultations that the EU organises. Currently, however, the European Union remains an abstract concept for the regular voter in Bulgaria, allowing populist forces to easily weaponise local grievances, highlighting the EU’s shortcomings and framing it as an intruder that imposes its will without understanding local struggles. Without further efforts to increase its visibility at the local level, Brussels is bound to remain vulnerable to the rise of populism across its member states, exacerbating existing internal tensions.

The views expressed in this #CriticalThinking article reflect those of the author(s) and not of Friends of Europe.