Why Bulgaria faces another dissolution of parliament and why it poses threat to Ukraine

For over a month, Bulgarian parliamentarians have been trying to find a way out of a deep political crisis and establish a basis for forming a governing coalition.

Another round of snap elections to the national parliament, the sixth in the last three years, did not bring political stability. At the same time, it once again strengthened the positions of the openly pro-Russian party Revival.

Now Bulgaria is just a few steps away from another dissolution of parliament and the new snap election.

Read more about how the situation has reached this point and whether it is possible to avoid such a favourable scenario for Russia in the article by Sergiy Gerasymchuk and Volodymyr-Nazarii Havrysh, the Foreign Policy Council "Ukrainian Prism" - A chance to stop 'Putin's friends': How Bulgaria can overcome the political crisis.

The political crisis has started practically from the election day on 9 June.

The attempt by the GERB-SDS bloc (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria – Union of Democratic Forces) together with the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) to form a government failed.

One of the reasons was that only 30 out of 45 MRF MPs supported the initiative to form a government.

The repressive reaction from the head of this party, Delyan Peevski, led to more than half of its MPs leaving the parliamentary group.

The second attempt to form a government was given to the political force that came second in the elections.

This was supposed to be the MRF, but due to the loss of half of its representatives, this party ended up lower in the list of the largest political parties in the Bulgarian National Assembly.

Thus, for We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (PP-DB), which has 39 members of parliament, a hypothetical path opened up to receiving a mandate to form a government from the country's president.

After internal consultations on 15 July, PP-DB held a meeting with President Rumen Radev, where they proposed forming a coalition by approving a declaration with seven reforms, mostly anti-corruption, within the parliament, and then forming a government based on the support for the declaration.

They also asked the president for a three-month delay before handing over the mandate.

Only representatives of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, GERB-SDS, and somewhat unexpectedly, the pro-Russian Revival expressed support for cooperation.

But these negotiations also failed.

On 22 July, We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria received a mandate from President Rumen Radev to form a government and immediately returned it.

Now the president has the right to give the next mandate to any parliamentary political force of his choice (most likely, it will be his affiliated socialists).

The failure of the third attempt to form a government will lead to the dissolution of parliament and the announcement of new snap elections.

The latest attempt to form a government has revealed a number of interesting trends.

Most importantly, the negotiations gave impetus to reconciliation between the pro-Western GERB-SDS and PP-DB.

If the pro-Western political forces refrain from sharp criticism of each other, it is very likely that the next elections will be positive for Bulgarian Euro-Atlanticists and negative for the numerous "friends of Putin."

But for this, the pro-Western forces need to take advantage of this opportunity.