Bulgarian government resigns, triggering unprecedented political rotation of PMs

Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov submitted his resignation on Tuesday, marking the beginning of an unprecedented political process of rotating prime ministers.

Denkov, a member of the centre-right pro-European coalition PP-DB, has served as prime minister for the past nine months and, according to the preliminary political agreement, will be succeeded by former Bulgarian EU commissioner Mariya Gabriel of GERB.

If the political process goes smoothly, Bulgaria will be governed for the next nine months by Gabriel, whose party is part of the EPP and supports Ursula von der Leyen for a second term as the head of the EU Commission. Nikolai Denkov’s party (Change Continues, part of the PP-DB) is associated with Renew Europe.

“For us, every contract is a promise between the parties, and good promises are promises that are kept. Therefore, we will propose that tomorrow (March 6), the National Assembly will vote on the resignation of the government of Nikolay Denkov,” says a message from “Change continues”.

Nikolai Denkov became prime minister nine months ago, following a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ between GERB and the PP-DB to lead Bulgaria out of a two-year political crisis. The government has several main goals, including securing Bulgaria’s entry into Schengen and the eurozone and helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression.

The government proposed to parliament to accept a record military aid to Kyiv worth more than €100 million just before Nikolay Denkov resigned. Military aid to Ukraine has not yet passed through parliament.

Despite preliminary political agreements between GERB and PP-DB, the rotation of prime ministers will not be smooth. In recent weeks, tensions between the main players in the battle for senior executive positions have continued to rise, threatening the country’s political stability.

On Tuesday, GERB proposed to the PP-DB the conclusion of a long-term coalition agreement for the next three years, but this was not accepted unequivocally.

The GERB party of former long-serving Prime Minister Boyko Borissov is offering the party of the country’s Turkish minority, the DPS (ALDE), an essential role in the government formula, which the PP-DB does not accept. One of the problems is the newly elected co-leader of the DPS, Delyan Peevski, a businessman and politician with a controversial reputation who was sanctioned by the US under the Magnitsky Act for corruption two years ago.

The PP-DB sees the influence of Peevski and his party as a brake on reform in the country, as Bulgaria’s international partners have sanctioned him for corruption. In the last nine months, however, the DPS has supported the implementation of the radical judicial reform that paved the way for Bulgaria’s accession to Schengen.

“It is an irrevocable and fundamental task to ensure the continuation of reforms in the judiciary, the security services, the election of honourable and expert members of the regulators, the full membership of Schengen and the Eurozone,” said the PP-DB position after the resignation of the government.

(Krassen Nikolov | Euractiv.bg)