Bulgarian Protests Revive Memories of 2013 Upheavals

Although they did not attract more than a few hundred people each, latest protests over the fuel prices drew alarmed reactions from the governing coalition on Monday.

Bulgarians from over 30 towns and cities took to the streets and blocked roads on Sunday to protest over rising fuel prices and changes to vehicle transport legislation.

These changes will result in higher environmental taxes on older cars and increased automobile insurance prices, voted in by parliament in the past week.

Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov and GERB parliament chair Tsvetan Tsvetanov on Monday both pledged that car insurance prices would not soar as high as 500 euros a year, as the Bulgarian Insurers' Association warned last week, sparking an outcry.

"Protests are part of the democratic processes, but there is a tendency of some to destabilize the country," Tsvetanov told a press conference.

Some of the marches intertwined with other protests that took place over the last few days, including protests by mothers of disabled children, seeking a reformed disability law, and calls for action against air pollution in cities like Ruse and Pernik.

Analysts see clear parallels between rising public tensions now and the mass protests of the winter of 2013, which brought down the first government of Prime Minister Boyko Borissov and his GERB party.

"These are once again protests with primarily social demands, rather than demands for better governance - like the protests of the summer of 2013," Parvan Simeonov, a sociologist from Gallup International - Balkan agency told BIRN, recalling the rallies against Plamen Oresharski's government, led by the Bulgarian Socialists and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms.

He said an outburst of popular...