It is hard to ignore Bulgaria’s heart-on-sleeve embrace of the EU. The bloc’s blue flag with gold stars flies at institutions more prominently than in other countries in eastern Europe. Pro-euro billboards paid for by the government dot Sofia’s streets and metro stations.
What is also conspicuous is the predicament that Bulgaria finds itself in as it adopted Europe’s single currency on Thursday last week. The government just resigned, it has no up-to-date budget and almost half the population wants to keep the lev.
The switch is meant to crown almost two decades of integration after Bulgaria joined the EU and then its Schengen customs-free travel zone. The European Central Bank’s main building in Frankfurt, Germany, has been illuminated to mark the transition on New Year’s Day, the latest accession since Croatia joined in 2023 and taking the number of countries with the currency to 21.
However, popular anger over corruption, cronyism and a persistent failure to get a viable government has cast a pall over progress. Bulgaria looks as much like a cautionary tale as a success story.
Protests in November against the Bulgarian government’s proposed tax and spending plans turned into the biggest display of unrest in more than a decade. By the middle of last month, the prime minister had quit and party leaders said an eighth election in five years was now the most likely outcome.
The EU has repeatedly criticized Bulgaria’s failure to improve rule of law and its low efficiency in probing high-ranking officials for corruption.
However, unlike in Hungary, Poland or Slovakia, pro-EU parties have dominated the political scene in Bulgaria, affording them some protection.
“Those parties have consistently leveraged their standing within their European political families as a form of external validation and whitewashing,” said Goran Georgiev, senior analyst at the Center for the Study of Democracy, an independent think tank in Sofia.
In Transparency International’s latest annual corruption perceptions index, Bulgaria only ranks above Hungary among EU members. The EU has delayed some of Bulgaria’s recovery funding on the grounds that the country has not fulfilled reforms related to its anti-corruption commission an increased scrutiny of the chief prosecutor.
Over the past decade, dozens of high-ranking businesspeople and public officials have been probed by authorities. They include former Bulgarian prime minister Boyko Borissov and Delyan Peevski, an oligarch who protesters say is Bulgaria’s eminence grise and who had become the lightning rod for their wrath. Both deny any wrongdoing and neither has been charged.
Protesting against the government in Sofia last month, Elena Ivanova, a stay-at-home mother of two boys, said she just wants fairness. She also lamented the number of people who used their freedom of movement as EU citizens to abandon the country.
Since it joined the EU in 2007, Bulgaria has suffered one of the biggest drops in population in the world, losing about 16 percent of its people as more than 1 million departed.
“I want a country that obeys by the rules and where people who follow the rules will get what they earn,” said Ivanova, 32. “Many of my friends left Bulgaria. I want my sons to remain.”
Ivan Peev, 34, joined the protests in Sofia together with his family since a pivotal demonstration against the budget plan on Nov. 26. He accuses the political elite of theft.
“This time it was just too much,” he said. “This budget showed we just get robbed. Every cent you give to this government is going to be stolen. It has never been so visible.”
The European Commission said the recent political developments have not interfered with Bulgaria’s adoption of the euro, while Georgiev said it would be geopolitical and economic suicide for any future government to try to reverse it.
However, Bulgaria is also emblematic of the issues facing other parts of the Balkans seeking European integration.
Protests against Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and his government are into their second year following a tragedy at a railway station that became the tipping point for public anger against perceived corruption. The demonstrators, though, show little love for Serbia’s drive to join the EU.
Meanwhile, Albania, where support for the EU is strong, is mired in a scandal over public contracts.
Polls show that Bulgaria is split on whether the euro is a good thing, mainly because of concern about inflation after a crisis wrecked people’s finances in the 1990s.
Bulgarian President Rumen Radev, who is friendly with Russia, pushed for a referendum on adoption, as did the pro-Moscow nationalist party Revival.
The government on Monday last week said that sanctions would be imposed on retailers, local traders and neighborhood food outlets found to have implemented “unjustified price increases.”
Peevski’s informal support for the latest administration helped keep it in power until it was engulfed by protests. Now the risk is more political sclerosis and social unrest.
About 40 percent of Bulgarians want a government formed around a brand new party, according to an Alpha Research poll.
Irina Staneva, a psychology student who attended the protests together with her friends, said now is the time to reclaim Bulgaria’s future as it joins the euro and prepares for yet another election.
“It’s the feeling that someone has taken away something that partly belongs to me and my friends,” said Staneva, 23. “We want it back.”
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