{"id":416350,"date":"2025-01-16T13:56:46","date_gmt":"2025-01-16T12:56:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/2025\/01\/16\/bulgaria-premier-rosen-zhelyazkov\/"},"modified":"2025-01-16T15:33:52","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T14:33:52","slug":"bulgaria-has-a-government-again-for-now-it-is-the-seventh-in-four-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/2025\/01\/16\/bulgaria-has-a-government-again-for-now-it-is-the-seventh-in-four-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Bulgaria has a government again (for now). It is the seventh in four years"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brussels–Bulgaria finally has a new government<\/strong>. After more than two months of intense negotiations<\/strong> following yet another early election, which produced a parliament without a clear majority<\/strong>, deputies voted confidence in the coalition executive led by Rosen Zhelyazkov<\/strong>, a center-right politician who is a former speaker of the House.<\/p>\n

Final approval came this morning<\/a>\u00a0(Jan. 16), when the National Assembly<\/strong> – Sofia’s single-chamber parliament – approved with 126 “yes” votes out of the total 240 seats,<\/strong> the start of the term in\u00a0office of Rosen Zhelyazkov<\/strong>, who\u00a0the President of the Republic,\u00a0Rumen Radev<\/strong>\u00a0tasked yesterday to\u00a0form a government<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

“Bulgaria needs a regular government that implements policies that support the democratic rule of law<\/strong>, the competitiveness of the economy<\/strong>, security,<\/strong> and the\u00a0protection of the social rights<\/strong> of citizens,” Zhelyazkov said in the House before the vote.<\/p>\n

The 56-year-old lawyer<\/strong> is a well-known face in national politics, militating for years in the ranks of GERB<\/strong>, the center-right party led by Boyko Borissov<\/strong>: from 2018 to 2021, he served as minister of Transportation<\/strong> before being elected deputy<\/strong> in 2021 and becoming Speaker of the House\u00a0<\/strong>from 2023 to 2024.<\/p>\n

Congratulations came from Brussels this\u00a0morning from the President of the European Council,\u00a0Ant\u00f3nio Costa<\/strong>, who “looks forward to working together on a strongly pro-European agenda<\/strong> for the benefit\u00a0of all Bulgarians.”<\/p>\n

\n

My warmest congratulations, Rosen Zhelyazkov, on your appointment as Prime Minister of Bulgaria.<\/p>\n

Wishing you success and looking forward to working together on a strong pro-European agenda for the benefit of all Bulgarians.<\/p>\n

– Ant\u00f3nio Costa (@eucopresident)\u00a0January 16, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bulgaria has been undergoing a prolonged phase of extensive political instability,<\/strong> holding seven early elections in four years<\/strong>. In the latest election round<\/a>, in\u00a0October, GERB came in first<\/strong> with 25.5 percent of the vote (69 seats), but it took some eighty days of complex talks<\/strong> with the other parliamentary forces to reach an agreement\u00a0on the new cabinet<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

GERB, the pro-Russian socialists of the BSP,<\/strong> and the populists of ITN<\/strong> (an acronym for\u00a0“There is Such a People”) back\u00a0the Zhelyazkov executive. The Turkish Minority Party (APS)<\/strong>\u00a0has ensured\u00a0external support<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

However, it is a\u00a0fragile majority<\/strong>\u00a0as the Constitutional Court<\/strong> should review<\/a> the\u00a0election results and reassign some parliamentary seats<\/strong> to the pro-Russian Velichie<\/strong> party, which had failed to pass the threshold by about 30 votes.<\/p>\n

The Balkan state is the poorest of the 27 member states, with persisting<\/strong>\u00a0enormous corruption problems<\/strong>\u00a0partly due to the presence of oligarchic structures that have yet to be completely eradicated. It is one of the seven EU members without the euro<\/strong> (the others are Czechia, Poland, Romania, Sweden, and Hungary, joined by Denmark, which, however, has a permanent opt-out<\/i> on adopting the single currency). However,\u00a0Zhelyazkov has promised to do everything possible to get Sofia into the eurozone<\/strong>. Since Jan. 1, Bulgaria became a full member of the Schengen Area<\/strong>,\u00a0along with Romania, permanently opening land borders.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Negotiations to form an executive following the October 2024 elections were particularly complex. Sofia will now be governed by a coalition in which the majority party remains GERB, which has nominated Rosen Zhelyazkov as prime minister<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7876,"featured_media":232391,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"0","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[25681],"tags":[28144,26929,30195,27510],"class_list":["post-416350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-boyko-borissov-en","tag-inbulgaria","tag-rosen-zhelyazkovon","tag-tanning"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7876"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416350"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416350\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":416369,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416350\/revisions\/416369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/232391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eunews.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}