While the world is swirling with the "revolution" of Donald Trump, the first 100 days of the "Zhelyazkov" cabinet have passed in Bulgaria. What have they produced, besides the fact that the Borisov-Peevski tandem is governing openly together for the first time?
Comment by Daniel Smilov:
While the world is swirling with the "revolution" of Donald Trump, which is supposedly going to put an end to the world order established after World War II, the first 100 days of the "Zhelyazkov" government have passed in Bulgaria. These 100 days in Bulgaria have shown mainly two things. Domestically, a fairly serious attempt is being made to restore the Borisov-Peevski government from before 2020. In foreign policy terms, Zhelyazkov's 100 days can be defined as geopolitical listening: the course has not formally changed, but the tactic is to lower the stakes until it is seen which way the wind is blowing.
The 100 days in 11 points
Looking at it in more detail, the 100 days produced the following:
1. Boyko Borisov managed to bring "New Beginning" into the government, which was also his original plan. That is why he stood firmly against the "cordon" against Peevski and terminated negotiations for a joint government with the PP-DB at an early stage. For him, an option with the PP-DB and "New Beginning" in the government would have been advantageous. But the PP-DB correctly read in this case that in such a formula their role would be simply that of a fig leaf. The role of a fig leaf was temporarily agreed to be played by Dogan's formation, but it also quickly realized the awkward situation it had found itself in. Moreover: the institutions definitely sided with "New Beginning" in numerous disputes (the last of which was about "Sarai in Boyana"), which made it impossible for the APS to participate in the ruling majority. In simple terms, Delyan Peevski expelled Dogan's people not only from the sarais, but also from the majority;
2. As a result, for the first time the Borisov-Peevski tandem openly governs together - the votes of "New Beginning" are officially necessary for the survival of the government and Peevski declares that he will support it. While Borisov aims to publicly distance himself from Peevski in his statements (as far as this is possible), Peevski insists on emphasizing his key role in the government;
3. The horizon of this model is related to the EU decision on Bulgaria's membership in the eurozone, which is expected in June. Until then, the country needs a regular government and this is becoming one of the main legitimizations of the current government. PP-DB are in the awkward situation of criticizing the government, but not taking measures to overthrow it at least until June. Which means that the government can only overthrow itself if it gets bogged down in one of the corruption scandals it regularly produces;
4. The big fuss about the "hole" in the budget and the high deficits inherited from Asen Vassilev turned out to be just an attempt by GERB and "New Beginning" to glorify themselves as saviors from non-existent troubles. Even the 2024 accrual-based budget came out within 3%, inflation entered the Maastricht criteria back in February, and the 2025 budget turned out to be easily compliant with the EU's financial discipline rules;
5. Instead of doing this, however, GERB and their partners raised spending for 2025 to record levels, increasing it dramatically more than GDP growth and the set inflation. As the icing on the cake, new loans of over 7 billion leva were added, which will be given out at the discretion of the Development Bank or will go to state-owned energy companies. The common thing in both cases is that the money will be spent without the parliament having determined what exactly it will be used for - and so the probability of it reaching customer networks is huge. As happened with the BDB loan of 200 million leva for the so-called Wolf: the state simply lost the money, and the former head of the bank Mavrodiev is currently a fugitive from justice;
6. As a result of the inflated spending, it was necessary to set too optimistic revenues in the 2025 budget. Therefore, it is likely that this budget will not be implemented in terms of the deficit. The hope of the ruling party is that this will not be important, because the decision to enter the eurozone will have already been made. But all this is not good management practice;
7. The delay in the three laws necessary for the release of payments for Bulgaria from the EU continued. There is movement on this package, but it has not yet been fully adopted. The main reason is apparently in the negotiation of new heads of anti-corruption bodies - the European partners still know what is going on in the country and will not turn a blind eye if openly corrupt people are also placed in these positions;
8. The biggest failures of the government - its Achilles heel - predictably turned out to be in the fight against corruption (rather in the fight against the fight against corruption). Most recently: the ruling majority stood like a wall against the hearing of the police officers, scandalously recalled when a smuggling channel was discovered. Instead of investigating and unraveling this case to the end, the Ministry of Interior responded by "discovering" a new "customs affair" - supposedly another smuggling channel of a mythical hero from the 90s (Pascal). And to make it clear that this was a crisis PR, the name of a PP-DB MP was also included in the mix. The targeted message is transparent: "we steal, but so does the opposition";
9. The most serious scandal in which the ruling party got involved was related to the European Prosecutor's Office and leaked compromising material from the archive of another fugitive from justice - Petyo Euroto. The European Prosecutor directly accused Delyan Peevski of pressure regarding the European Prosecutor's Office's investigations into the Chiren gas storage facility. Petyo Euroto's activities have supposedly been under investigation for years (after the Anti-Corruption Fund and others shed light on it). But nothing substantial has been achieved, perhaps because the acting chief prosecutor is Borislav Sarafov - a man who is believed to be connected to Euroto in various ways. In any case, the new government is generally fighting to reproduce the existing model in the judiciary and services;
10. The inclusion of "New Beginning" in the ruling majority will enable Borisov-Peevski to carry out this reproduction of the status quo in the judiciary and regulators. The PP-DB cannot prevent this - even when they present much more professionally prepared candidates (for example, Yonko Grozev), these candidates are bypassed by the majority. After a recent decision by the Court of Justice of the EU, urgent renewal of bodies such as the Supreme Judicial Council and the Inspectorate will be necessary, as well as the election of a new Prosecutor General. This will also be the critical point for the "Peevski-Borisov" model. If the nuts of the dependent magistrates are tightened too much, this may trigger public protests like in June 2013 and negative reactions from the EU;
11. In terms of foreign policy, Zhelyazkov holds the current line honestly and honorably, while Borisov and Peevski have opened their valences to Trump (and Orbán because of Trump). This has so far brought rather comical results and setbacks for GERB within the EPP: Ms. Gabriel was not elected deputy chair of the formation, despite the fact that GERB is a ruling party that has produced a prime minister. And on the American front, Donald Trump Jr. did not take a picture with Borisov and did not allow the mythical meeting (which, according to "in the know", lasted between five minutes and an hour and a half) to be used in the media in any way. This means that Trump does not want to identify and connect with Bulgarian politicians at this stage. It may also mean that this strict behavior is a negotiating strategy of Trump and his team, which aims to shock Borisov and extract maximum benefit for the American side. And now Borisov and Peevski, as evil tongues say, are quite ready to offer everything to ease the "Magnitsky" sanctions. Probably out of shock, they would offer twice as much of everything.
Still
The geopolitical listening in the first 100 days of the "Zhelyazkov" government leaves Bulgaria in a waiting position. The "transactional approach" in Trump's policy, in which not values, but power and interests are leading, has not officially imposed itself in our country. Still, at least nominally, Bulgaria remains a country that is European in terms of values and wants to be part of the European family - meaningfully, and not just as a number. Still, values such as the rule of law and an independent judiciary have not been officially abandoned and have not been replaced with outright partisanship. There is still some fear of public reaction, of criticism from European partners, and even of the strength of the better argument.
The question is for how long, since the main protagonists of Euro-Atlantic values either abandon them (to "work for the people"), or quietly go to meetings with a publicly unclear purpose, at which the future of the country may be decided.
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This comment expresses the personal opinion of the author and may not coincide with the positions of the Bulgarian editorial office and the State Gazette as a whole.