Bulgaria Waited for the Government. Kremlin Supporters Unhappy
There is hope that President Rumen Radev’s pro-Kremlin course could be reversed.
The political fog is clearing
At the turn of May and June of this year, violent rallies were held in front of the presidential administration building in Sofia calling for the impeachment of President Rumen Radev . The reason was his attempts to orchestrate the behavior of political parties in the process of their negotiations on the formation of a government, in fact preventing its creation. The demonstrators also demanded the resignation of the President in connection with his repeated statements against the provision of military assistance to Ukraine. Radev was called “servant of Russia”, “Putin’s agent”, “rezident”, they reminded him that “this is not Moscow” and offered to “go to the East”.
These crowded speeches took place shortly before the decisive vote in parliament, when for the first time in more than two years, after five early parliamentary elections, a coalition government in Bulgaria was formed. Thus, after June 6, Radev lost the possibility of direct control of the country: the seemingly endless parliamentary crisis allowed him to do this through temporary cabinets, which he himself appointed.
For the appearance of the government, it took two previously irreconcilable political forces to come to an agreement – the GERB party of the former long-term prime minister Boyko Borisov , as well as the alliance of the parties “Continue Changes” (leader – another ex-premier Kiril Petkov ) and “Democratic Bulgaria”. Together, they almost equally control 133 seats in the 240-seat People’s Assembly. GERB, which is formally considered a conservative pro-European party, is trailed by accusations of corruption, ignoring the principles of the rule of law, subordinating independent courts to political interests. “Harvard Boy” Kiril Petkov, on the contrary, in 2022, in a few months of premiership, he demonstrated how a truly European Bulgaria could develop. In July 2022, by decision of his government, 70 diplomatic and technical employees of Russian institutions were expelled from the country. Shortly thereafter, Petkov’s cabinet was overthrown – precisely because of a vote of no confidence initiated by GERB.
The main mechanisms of the state were broken, the elections ceased to inspire confidence
The objective grounds for the union of former antagonists were outlined by Khristo Ivanovwho used to be Minister of Justice. The main crisis that needs to be overcome, he said in parliament, is the crisis of the social contract. The reason for it is that the transition from the status of a de facto Russian colony to a full-fledged democracy in Bulgaria never materialized. “The main mechanisms of the state have been broken, the elections have ceased to inspire confidence. All this is happening against the backdrop of the most difficult geopolitical situation in recent generations.” The main priorities of the new government have managed to become a commonplace in the views of all pro-European forces: reformatting the justice system; more active fight against corruption; reaching consensus on key elements of the electoral process; restoring order and modernizing the security system.
The state of the latter causes great concern among the democratic forces. The winning parties believe that now the special services are working primarily in accordance with the ideas and needs of President Radev. According to the testimonyrepresentative of the official body – the Commission for the Disclosure of Documents and the Declaration of Bulgarian Citizens’ Membership of the State Security and Intelligence Services of the Socialist Period (KOMDOS), “even more than thirty years after the fall of communism, the power of the once ubiquitous State Security Service (DS) in Bulgaria still remains undeniable Former employees occupy influential positions in politics, business and academia and actively interfere in the country’s politics in the European Union, despite the fact that during the accession to the EU in 2007 the government opened state security archives and introduced mandatory verification of candidates for all elected positions “. As KOMDOS member Ekaterina Boncheva noted, former intelligence officers continue to influence politics and society in Bulgaria – “with the help of Russia.” “They never served Bulgaria’s national security, only the communist regime and the KGB,” says Boncheva.
The network of former agents, which is still active today, creates a problem for Bulgaria as a member of the EU and NATO. This became clear quite recently, after the start of full-scale Russian aggression against Ukraine, continues Boncheva. “Well-informed government circles in Sofia, insisting on anonymity, claim that the secret services first announced that there would be no war, then they said that everything would end in two days and that it was better for Bulgaria to remain neutral. Therefore, in February 2022, deputies of the then parliament demanded an investigation “Were the secret services intentionally misleading the government?” Boncheva also cites another example: Old security cadres in the Foreign Ministry and in President Radev’s circle of advisers are also behind Bulgaria’s blocking of North Macedonia’s accession to the EU. In turn, they are supported by “colleagues” from the Bulgarian nationalist parties. All of them constantly stir up conflict with the neighboring country, “which serves Russia’s strategic interests in the Balkans.”
The press got information that the new cabinet plans to appoint new heads of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, as well as DANS (State National Security Agency) and a number of other special services, including military intelligence. As Deutsche Welle notes , keeping the heads of the secret services appointed by the president “who was selected for this position by the KGB resident” (meaning General Reshetnikov , who approved Radev’s candidacy in the 2016 presidential election on behalf of the Kremlin), is political suicide for the Bulgarian parliamentary democracy.
New people
For the first time in Bulgaria there was a rotating prime minister. For the first nine months, it is Nikolai Denkov (PP-DB), an academician who was at one time the Minister of Education. Then for the same period he should be replaced by Maria Gabriel(GERB), which until recently was a member of the European Commission for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth Affairs. Gabriel, who has good connections in European structures, is now becoming Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. She is expected to do a lot of work in passing the laws necessary for Bulgaria to receive the funds of the Recovery and Resilience Plan under the EU programs. There is also a real opportunity to achieve the goals that have been hampered by the absence of a regular government – Bulgaria’s accession to the Schengen, presumably this autumn, and the eurozone (postponed to early 2025). These steps would deprive the Kremlin of many levers of influence over Bulgaria.
The political crisis has led to a decrease in confidence in Bulgaria on the part of the EU and NATO allies, primarily in a realistic assessment of the Kremlin’s aggressive war against Ukraine and assistance to it. In this regard, the appointment of Todor Tagarev , a prominent military official, who, curiously, defended his thesis at the Air Force Engineering Academy named after. Zhukovsky in Moscow, and retrained already at the US Air Force Command and Staff College in Alabama. If Rumen Radev never came out with an unconditional condemnation of Russian aggression against Ukraine, then the new Minister of Defense already at the inauguration ceremony said: Bulgaria should provide assistance to Ukraine to continue the counteroffensive and liberate the occupied territories. Bulgaria is very useful for Ukraine, said Norbert Beckmann , head of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation’s representative office in Bulgaria, since, as a former Warsaw Pact country, it has Soviet ammunition. Bulgaria has 300,000 shells that can be immediately delivered to Ukraine.
Radev will not leave the new government alone
However, it is clear to observers that the appearance of a new government will not solve the problems. Here is a typical episode: the leader of one of the opposition parties announced the formation of the Cabinet of Ministers as a “velvet coup d’état” carried out by the US Embassy. This was done by the chairman of the pro-Kremlin “Renaissance” (the third largest faction in parliament with 37 seats) Kostadin Kostadinov , aka Kostya Kopeikin- this nickname is the subject of his pride. Fourteen figures in the new government are directly or indirectly linked to the US, Kostadinov said, because “they studied at American universities, worked for American organizations, or received grants from American foundations.” Now Vozrozhdenie is seeking a referendum on postponing the introduction of a single European currency in Bulgaria until 2043, despite the fact that the annual cost of converting the Bulgarian lev within the EU is 500 million euros.
Publicist Plamen Assenov calls “fragile” the hope of the Bulgarians that finally there is a chance to get out of the Russian swamp into which Radev is purposefully dragging us, and begin to fully equip their lives as a European, free and democratic country. In his opinion, Radev “will not leave the new government alone, he will fight it with all available means – which, due to the presence of a large cohort of people lured by Russia, placed in key positions in the state, are many. The entire Bulgarian political class is to blame for this – from – for his incompetence, short-sightedness, indecision in actions and inability to put national interests above party and personal interests.
Source : Радио Свобода
