In Bulgaria, European Elections Only Confirm Status Quo

Bulgaria's elections bucked several perceived trends throughout the EU. For one, there was no Green wave. In Bulgaria, as in the rest of Eastern Europe, green parties remain a negligible force. As if to drive that point home, the youth climate-strike movement that mobilized many youngsters in various countries across Europe failed to make any headway in Bulgaria.

Secondly, in contrast to some Western European countries, Bulgaria's governing GERB party convincingly won the ballot. But GERB did so in a way that would not set off any alarm bells in Brussels - unlike the case with Poland or Hungary.

GERB remains clearly dominant, having won 12 of the last 13 elections in Bulgaria, but it shares the electoral spoils with the country's two other major parties: the Bulgarian Socialists, BSP, and the mainly ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms, MRF. Since Bulgaria joined the EU, these three parties have together held at least 70 per cent of Bulgaria's seats in the European Parliament. It was the overall low voter turnout in this election that likely aided two smaller parties, the far-right VMRO and the anti-corruption Democratic Bulgaria coalition, enabling them to win some seats with only single-digit scores. 

Bulgaria's Prime Minister Book Borissov arrives at a special EU summit in Brussels, Belgium, 28 May 2019. Two days after the European Parliament elections. Photo: EPA/STEPHANIE LECOCQ

There was also no surge in support for Eurosceptic or far-right parties in Bulgaria. Although it looks like Bulgaria will retain its two MEPs in the ECR group, the far right underperformed. The so-called United Patriots are the junior coalition partner in Sofia, but its constituent parties, the NFSB, VMRO and Ataka have been internally divided...