Fear and anxiety in Kiev: Will the new government in Sofia maintain its support for Ukraine

The political crisis in Bulgaria, which has been going on since at least March last year, officially ended on January 15, and the new coalition government in Bulgaria has caused excitement and concern in Ukraine. The main question is whether the coalition partners will maintain their support for Kiev. This is the question asked by Sergey Gerasimchuk and Volodymyr-Nazariy Havrish of "Ukrainian Prism" in an extensive article for Evropeyskaya Pravda.

Over the past ten months, Bulgaria has held two early elections (in June and October 2024), with the second attempt unexpectedly successful.

The new government is made up of three ideologically opposing parties: the conservative Euro-Atlanticists from GERB-SDF, the populist isolationists from the "Ima takvi narod" party (ITN), and the pro-Russian Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP).

The head of the government is Rosen Zhelyazkov from the GERB-SDF party (last summer he failed to become prime minister, but his second attempt was more successful), and the leader of the socialists Atanas Zafirov will become one of the deputy prime ministers.

The difficulties of the negotiations have even had an impact on Bulgarian-Ukrainian relations

In December, Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev did not sign a security agreement with Ukraine due to the request of representatives of the Bulgarian National Assembly to wait until the election of the next government.

But can we expect that the emergence of a new government will improve relations between Bulgaria and Ukraine? Unfortunately, there are serious doubts in this regard.

Union of Opponents

Is it possible to hope that there will be no pro-Russian participants in the new Bulgarian government? Or at least the positions of the pro-Western forces will be stronger?

There was such a possibility, because since December last year the liberal "Democratic Bulgaria" (DB), which is part of the bloc with the party "Continuing Change" (PP), participated in the negotiations together with the aforementioned parties, but led the coalition consultations separately.

Only at the last moment, on January 5, were the talks with the DB terminated due to the latter's disagreement to see representatives of the GERB-SDF party - both the party chairman Boyko Borisov and Rosen Zhelyazkov, as prime minister.

Boyko Borisov himself is a polarizing figure in Bulgarian politics - one half of the politicians talk about his talent for compromise and communication, while the other half talks about the lack of such talents and, conversely, about the autocratic and unpredictable nature of the GERB party chairman.

The claims of the latter are also supported by the information about Boyko Borisov's refusal to cooperate with the PP-DB.

In turn, the former speaker of the National Assembly Rosen Zhelyazkov, although he seemed like a more compromising prime minister than Borisov, did not was deprived of influence.

As a result, a coalition was formed without "Democratic Bulgaria" - and even without a formal majority.

This is yet another proof of the instability of the current government.

After all, it was formed by three parties that are ideological opponents, and in addition, in its work it has to respond to the demands of a fourth party, without which it could receive a vote of no confidence at any time.

Moreover, not even all members of this government believe that it was worth creating.

In particular, the BSP party (which united almost all left-wing political parties in Bulgaria in the elections) has already started talking about the withdrawal of the left from the coalition - this was stated by representatives of the Stand Up.BG party of Maya Manolova and the Bulgarian Spring party of Velizar Enchev, who consider the coalition with GERB-SDS to be big mistake and equate it to a "deal with the devil".

Supporters and critics of Ukraine

Bulgaria's new government includes 19 ministries.

GERB-SDF took over key portfolios - it controls the ministries of internal affairs and foreign affairs, as well as the ministries of justice, finance, education and science, energy, tourism and innovation and growth.

The Socialists, on the other hand, took control of the ministries of environment and water, regional development and public works, labor and social policy, and youth and sports.

In turn, the ministries of economy and industry, health, culture, and transport and infrastructure received ITN.

In addition, some ministries received independent heads, "inherited" from the previous technical government of Dimitar Glavchev.

Among them are the very important Ministry of Defense, as well as the Ministries of Agriculture and Food and E-Government.

The ministers deserve special attention.

Among them are many who were previously known for statements or actions in support of Ukraine.

Minister of Defense Atanas Zapryanov has repeatedly supported Ukraine and spoken out against Russia and in favor of the development of the defense capabilities of Bulgaria, NATO and the EU, he has worked and is working for the modernization of the Bulgarian army, navy and air force.

In 2023, Minister of Justice Georgi Georgiev was awarded the state award of Ukraine - the Order of "For Merit, III degree" for his significant personal contribution to strengthening interstate cooperation, supporting the state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, and promoting the Ukrainian state in the world.

Before becoming Minister of Economy and Industry, Petar Dilov worked at the Bulgarian National Bank and was directly involved in the integration of EU legislation and the banking system in Bulgaria.

In the first days of the war in 2022, Tourism Minister Miroslav Borshosh insisted on greater Bulgarian participation in helping Ukraine and called for not thinking that the war was already lost. In 2024, the second year of the war, he sent a letter to the Minister of Culture calling for the National Palace of Culture in Sofia to be illuminated in the colors of the Ukrainian flag as a sign of solidarity.

And of course, Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov is worth mentioning in this list.

He has political experience as the Speaker of the Parliament from 2023 to 2024, where he was supported by the PP-DB and the SDP-SDF, and during this period he visited Ukraine and declared Bulgaria's unwavering support, as well as promised to continue providing Kiev with weapons and assistance.

However, the new government has some ambiguous and unfriendly figures.

First of all, this is the Minister of Labor and Social Policy Borislav Gutsanov, who was "pleasantly surprised" from GERB's proposal to postpone the signing of the security agreement.

According to him, the security agreement with Ukraine is “scandalous“ and “borders on national treason“. He calls on his colleagues to “stop this madness and seek a peaceful solution to end the special military operation“.

He also has questions for Interior Minister Daniel Mitov, who directly advocates blocking the security agreement with Ukraine until the next government is elected. However, he also stated that this agreement should have been signed several years ago.

It is also worth noting the important personality of the head of Bulgarian diplomacy for Ukraine.

Currently, Foreign Minister Georg Georgiev seems to be rather neutral towards Ukraine.

He is known to be an expert on Asian issues, in particular South Korea and China. This may be an indirect indication of Bulgaria's readiness to deepen its relations with the countries of the Global South.

Challenges for Bulgaria. And for Ukraine

The new government takes office at a very important moment for Bulgaria - the country has a chance to join the eurozone. But only if it continues to meet the budget requirements.

The problem in this situation is the ITN party, which last year had some common positions with the pro-Russian party "Vazrazhdane".

Moreover, the ITN is not an "unreliable partner", the Ukrainian authors have changed.

Moreover, there are serious suspicions that such a coalition would have a negative impact on the BSP party and its popularity among the pro-Russian electorate.

"First, the party's partners on the left side of the Bulgarian political spectrum have already become critics of the decision to support the coalition with GERB".

"Second, a pro-Russian voter may also not understand such a decision. Under these conditions, in order to prove their loyalty to the leftist idea and the Russian Federation, the members of the BSP government will be tempted to openly sabotage state policy and insist on their priorities", the article concludes.

"And this is a serious threat to Ukraine, because the socialists have always been against any military aid to Kiev".

"However, with the current distribution of forces, the BSP will not be able to directly influence the delivery of aid to Ukraine", the authors believe.

They can only use the powers of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, "to worsen the lives of refugees from Ukraine", but this will cause a wave of condemnation not only from Ukraine and Western partners, but even from the citizens of Bulgaria themselves.

The still unsigned security agreement with Ukraine also remains a problem.

"However, the words of Defense Minister Atanas Zapryanov are encouraging, as he assured that Bulgaria will continue to support Ukraine, despite the presence of the BSP in the government, and that the issue of the security agreement will be returned for consideration in the near future".