Bulgaria Resigns Government Ahead of Snap Elections: Impact on Russian Influence and EU Relations

The poorest state EU, Bulgaria is experiencing another political upheaval – the current Prime Minister and Cabinet of Ministers are resigning. The snap elections in June will be the sixth in just over three years.

Expect Russia to do “everything possible” to regain influence in Bulgaria, warns the country’s recently retired former prime minister Nikolay Denkov. His pro-Western, pro-Ukraine government has been able to reduce the country’s energy dependence on Russia, expel more than 80 of its secret agents posing as diplomats, and introduce a screening program in for the national media to combat the disinformation of Russia. During his time in power, Bulgaria was a reliable ally of Ukraine.

Denkov has no doubt that on the eve of the elections, Moscow will redouble its efforts to renew its influence in the country to further destabilize the EU and its relations with Ukraine.

Read about how Russian influence is destroyed in Bulgaria and whether the Kremlin will be able to restore it in the material from OBOZ.UA.

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev appointed an interim government and announced early parliamentary elections on June 9.

All because on March 5, Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov resigned from the government, as the two largest parties in Bulgaria were unable to renew the coalition agreement that kept the government in power for nine months. Before that, the center-right party GERB (Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria) and the anti-Western Bulgarian Continuation of Change/Democratic party said they could not form a new cabinet.

Former EU Innovation Commissioner and Deputy Prime Minister Maria Gabriel, who represents GERB, plans to switch positions with Denkov and take over as prime minister for nine months. However, due to a disagreement about the composition of the Cabinet, the negotiations failed, which is typical in Bulgarian politics.

Bulgaria expects a difficult election process, believing that Russian disinformation will be present in the June elections, as it was before. To counter this, last month the government launched a program to pressure the national media to introduce fact-checking programs, especially against statements by politicians who oppose the Russia.

For many years, Bulgaria considered Moscow to be a close partner, unlike Poland or the Baltic countries. For a long time, the country was considered a Trojan horse for Russia in the EU and NATO, supporting the Kremlin’s energy projects and trying to weaken sanctions against Russia.

For many years, the percentage of Bulgarians who had a positive attitude towards the Russian Federation was the highest among EU and NATO members. Economy contributed to the rapprochement. Bulgaria bought gas from Russia, covering almost 100% of its needs. Until recently, the integrated nuclear power plant operated on Russian fuel, and the only oil refinery was completely managed by the Russian Lukoil. Back in 2016, Bulgaria refused to join NATO’s proposed plan to strengthen the Alliance’s presence in the Black Sea, stating that “they do not want to humiliate Russia and do not need at war.”

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine changed a lot in this regard. In 2022, the Bulgarian parliament approved the decision to provide military technical assistance to Ukraine.

In the summer of 2022, relations with the Russian Federation declined to the lowest level – several dozen Russian diplomats were expelled at the same time, accused by the Bulgarian authorities of having ties to the Russian intelligence services. The Consulate General of the Russian Federation in Ruse was closed, and the work of the Consulate General in Varna was suspended. There has not been such a crisis in bilateral relations for “several decades.”

“We have seen Russian influence all these years. It has never gone away,” notes Denkov. According to him, this process has increased in the last two years after the beginning of the war, because Bulgaria was and is still an active friend of Ukraine. “Russia is doing everything possible to restore its strong influence, but the country will not change its line outside of Ukraine,” said Denkov.

In any case, in recent years Bulgaria has gone from almost total dependence on Russian energy to relative independence. Russia completely stopped the supply of gas to Bulgaria in April 2022. The reason for this development of events was the issue of payments, because previously Putin signed a decree forcing Gazprom’s foreign contractors to pay​​​​ Russian gas in rubles from April 1, 2022. EU countries and, in particular, Bulgaria did not agree to this. The country’s leadership also chose an American company to provide fuel for its nuclear power plant, removing the Russians from this process.

The Bulgarians decided to get rid of not only gas dependence on the Russian Federation. Russia’s Lukoil has had problems in relations with local authorities for a month now, stating that they want to “exclude Russia from businesses in which they are interested.” Yes, the country stopped to import Russian oil on March 1 this year. Bulgaria and several other EU countries were exempted by Brussels from the ban on oil imports from the Russian Federation until the end of 2024. The government of the republic closed the abandonment of Russian raw materials before the schedule, which will hit the Lukoil oil refinery, which began operating in the country in October 1999.

Bulgaria also introduced a 60 percent profit tax for refineries. This has already led to the fact that the Russians are going to sell the largest oil refinery in Southeast Europe and other assets in Bulgaria and, finally, leave the country.

Although Denkov, during his short premiership, took many measures against the activities of the Kremlin in Bulgaria, not many support the course of Bulgarian politicians to sever relations with the Russian Federation and its enterprises. Thus, support for the Renaissance party, which adheres to the Kremlin’s position, has increased fivefold over the past two years. Thus the party became the third political force in Bulgaria.

By the way, representatives of the pro-Russian nationalist party “Renaissance” and Bulgarian socialists are still quietly attending celebrations for Russia Day at the Russian embassy in Sofia. Representatives of several Bulgarian organizations and the Orthodox Church also take part in the events of the invaded country.

The leader of Vozrozhdenie Kostadinov does not hide his loyalty to the Kremlin, conducting various propaganda campaigns. The party is also pushing for a referendum to stop Bulgaria from joining the euro – another Euro-Atlanticist priority.

Another feature of the Russian influence is that many of the most authoritative Bulgarian thieves in law have been connected to the Russian intelligence services since the communist era. These shadow oligarchs seized key national assets after the collapse of the socialist bloc and created organized crime networks, siphoning EU funds, engaging in extortion and smuggling drugs, weapons and people. At the same time, law enforcement agencies and the country’s security service turn a blind eye when the strings of the case could be pulled to Moscow.

“Bulgaria was called the 16th Soviet republic especially after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine it has decreased a bit, but Moscow, through its pro-Russian parties, will try to tip the balance back in its favor,” this opinion was expressed by the diplomat, Ambassador of Ukraine to Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2010-2017, Alexander Levchenko, in a special statement to OBOZ.UA.

“The pro-Russian forces in this country are the Revival party and the Bulgarian Socialist Party, they have about 25-30 percent, as well as fringe parties, not parliamentary parties, that is, today 30-35 percent of the pro-Russian electoral victory in Bulgaria, which can grow After all, with each election, Russia increases its interference in the electoral process, as those before, and this will not affect relations with Ukraine.

On the one hand, the resignation of the government is often a sign of full-fledged democratic processes. At the same time, because of the lack of unity in the democratic camp, we see frequent political crises in Bulgaria. That is, just mathematically, the Euro-Atlanticists could always be in coalition and rule the country. But this is blocked by both personal ambitions of some political figures and pro-Russian influence. After all, the Russians are actively working for dissent directly in the pro-European camp, setting some politicians against others. Anyway, we see this now in Ukraine. This is the basis of Moscow’s policy now, so that they cannot agree.

In the middle of these parties, obviously, there are secret representatives who do not show in any way that they are on the side of Moscow, but at the same time they do not allow these parties to have coalition ties establish strong with another force. that is similar in ideology and values. As we can see, there are some successes, so Moscow is working further to disturb people and emotions, which is indeed a great danger for Bulgaria,” said Alexander Levchenko.