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6 months ago
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Ahead of the June European elections and a parallel national vote, bloc-wide issues are far from the campaign agenda, with domestic matters prevailing across all parties and politicians.
Following the resignation of Nikolai Denkov’s pro-European government in early spring, Bulgaria plunged back into a spiralling political crisis, and snap parliamentary elections were called for the same date as the European elections—9 June.
This set the tone for the campaign, and the debate on EU issues was doomed to fail against the backdrop of power struggles in Sofia.
“There is no Bulgarian political leader who talks about European issues during the election campaign because it is much less interesting for the voters than internal problems,” Dimitar Ganev from the sociological agency Trend told Euractiv.
In 2023, the Denkov government defined two main goals related to Bulgaria’s future in the EU – achieving full Schengen membership and joining the eurozone.
Bulgaria and Romania were partially admitted to the Schengen area, with the removal of border checks at their air and sea borders from 31 March 2024, though this issue quickly disappeared from the Bulgarian media.
The debate was also suspended after the failed attempt by the pro-Russian far-right party Vazrazhdane to organise a referendum to block eurozone membership.
“There is no serious debate in Bulgaria about adopting the euro. After the unsuccessful attempt to hold a referendum on Vazrazhdane, there is no one to talk about this issue,” Ganev said.
Meanwhile, the latest polls by Trend and Market Links point to former prime minister Boyko Borissov’s GERB (EPP) polling at 26-27%, meaning it has increased its lead by 10% over the second political formation, the liberal PP-DB coalition (16-17%), made up of parties associated with the EPP and Renew Europe.
The numbers for PP-DB can probably be explained by the fact that many of those in the PP-DB coalition were in Denkov’s coalition government, which was elected in cooperation with GERB.
Nevertheless, many PP-DB supporters see Borissov and his party as the primary political opponent, which has reduced support for the Liberals by about 10% compared with the April parliamentary elections.
Besides that, the Turkish minority party DPS (ALDE) and pro-Russian far-right Vazrazhdane (ID) are right behind PP-DB, with 14.9% and 14.8%, respectively, suggesting that the fight for second place will be tough.
Further down the list is the largest left-wing party, the BSP (PES), with 8.5%, which puts it in fifth place. Five years ago, the BSP managed to win five MEPs, but the subsequent rapid collapse of the left meant that the pro-Russian socialists in Bulgaria saw their score triple.
Preliminary projections indicate that GERB will have between five and six of the 17 MEP seats allocated to Bulgaria in the EU Parliament, up from the current five.
The potential of the pro-European PP-DB coalition is between three and four MEPs, which will be a big step forward compared to the 2019 elections. Until now, the coalition parties had only one MEP.
DPS is likely to keep its current share of three MEPs. Vazrazhdane can also expect three MEPs to join the Identity and Democracy group, as the Bulgarian far-right had two MEPs appointed by the VMRO.
The populist party There is Such a People, led by former TV presenter Slavi Trifonov, expects 5% support to give it a political group in the Bulgarian parliament (it needs at least 4%), but that will not be enough to have an MEP; for the EU vote, it would need 5.88%.
“The remaining days of the campaign will decide the battle for second, third and fourth place,” Ganev also commented.
Turnout for the snap election is expected to be similar to the last general election, with between 2.5 and 2.7 million voters expected to cast their ballots – around 48%. The declared turnout for the European elections is 3% lower.
For the time being, there are many formations below the threshold for parliamentary representation that have a clearly expressed electoral base but not enough to enter parliament.
Vanya Grigorova’s Solidarity Bulgaria gets 2.4%, Blue Bulgaria 1.8%, The Left 1.4%, Bulgarian Rise (1.2%) and VMRO (1.1%). The “I don’t support anyone” option gets just over 5%, but the result is not included in the distribution. This means more than 10% of Bulgarian voters will not be represented in parliament.
(Krassen Nikolov | Euractiv.bg)
Read more with Euractiv
Lithuanian president announces re-election
(Recasts with Nauseda calling victory)
By Andrius Sytas
VILNIUS, May 26 (Reuters) - Lithuanian Gitanas Nauseda announced his re-election in a presidential ballot on Sunday, following a campaign dominated by security concerns in the European Union and NATO member next door to Russia.
The Baltic nation of 2.8 million people has been a staunch ally of Ukraine since Russia's 2022 invasion. Like other countries in the region, it worries it could be Moscow's next target.
Ballots from nearly 90% of polling stations showed Nauseda, 60, winning roughly three quarters of the vote, followed by Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte, 49, from the ruling centre-right Homeland Union party.
If confirmed by final results, Nauseda's backing in his bid for a second term will be highest in the country since it split from the Soviet Union in 1991.
A former senior economist with Swedish banking group SEB who is not affiliated with any party, Nauseda won the first round of the election on May 12 with 44% of the votes, short of the 50% he needed for an outright victory.
Just over half of Lithuanians believe a Russian attack is possible or even very likely, according to a ELTA/Baltijos Tyrimai poll conducted between February and March. Russia has regularly dismissed concerns that it might attack a NATO member.
Nauseda told jubilant supporters in the capital Vilnius that he will continue working on the country's defence capabilities.
"Lithuanian independence and freedom is like a fragile vessel which we need to cherish and keep from cracking," he said.
Both Nauseda and Simonyte support increasing defence spending to at least 3% of Lithuania's gross domestic product, from the 2.75% planned for this year.
But Nauseda, who is a social conservative, has clashed with Simonyte on other issues, including whether to give a legal recognition to same-sex civil partnerships, which Nauseda opposes.
He has said it would make such unions too similar to marriage, which Lithuania's constitution only allows between a man and a woman.
Simonyte, a former finance minister and a fiscal hawk, said on Thursday that if she won, "the direction for the country - pro-European, pro-Western - would not change".
"But I would like quicker progress, more openness and understanding, larger tolerance to people who are different from us", she said.
Lithuania's president has a semi-executive role, which includes heading the armed forces, chairing the supreme defence and national security policy body and representing the country at EU and NATO summits.
The president sets foreign and security policy in tandem with the government, can veto laws and has a say in the appointment of key officials such as judges, the chief prosecutor, the chief of defence and the head of the central bank. (Reporting by Andrius Sytas; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Tomasz Janowski)
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