Socialist Party

The article is from EUObserver

Bulgaria, already grappling with a severe political crisis, is now trying to deal with what the government has called an organised attempt to destabilise its financial system.

Bulgarian President (2002-2011) Georgi Parvanov is due to found the Alternative for Bulgarian Revival (ABV) party on his birthday on Saturday.

ABV has grown out of his movement with the same name, which Parvanov, also a former socialist party (BSP) leader, has headed for years and which surprisingly chose to run at European Parliament elections separately from BSP this year.

German Parliament adopted Friday legal changes curtailing subsidies allocated to renewable energy producers.

Bundestag members took the move after an unprecedented threefold increase of state aid for the sector in just four years.

"We will propose to the president the date of October 5 for holding the parliamentary election," Socialist Party leader Sergei Stanishev told journalists on Friday after the main parties met in parliament.

Bulgarian ruling party chief Sergey Stanishev has surprisingly submitted to Parliament a request to be freed of his duties as a lawmaker in order to become MEP.

His move suggests a sharp turn in plans he has maintained over the past months.

Lawmakers have approved all members of Bulgaria's Audit Office following a nearly three-hour debate.

With 111 to 80 votes, a total of nine people were appointed and sworn in, despite calls by the opposition that the ruling parties should not embark on such a move in the eve of resignation and early elections.

All major political parties who have a firm electorate would lose from the introduction of mandatory voting, says ex-Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov.

Parvanov, a former Socialist Party member who now leads the ABV movement, is generally against mandatory voting, but realizes it would minimize the effect of vote-buying.

Thanos Moraitis on Wednesday became the first PASOK MP to openly say that Evangelos Venizelos must step down as leader of the socialist party.

PASOK, Moraitis said, “needs a new leadership, one that can inspire, unite and expand [the party's influence].”

Low voter turnout at the EU elections on May 25 was a result of the Ukraine crisis and the rise of President (2002-2011)'s splinter-off ABV party, BSP officials believe.

After a meeting of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP)'s Executive Bureau Tuesday, Dimitar Dabov, Deputy Chair of the party's National Council, said his party failed to mobilize its traditional supporters.

Recent Government Moves Raise Concerns About Moscow's Influence in Former Client

The article is from the Wall Street Journal

Concerns are growing in some Western capitals that Bulgaria, for decades one of the Soviet bloc's most loyal members, could be falling back under Moscow's spell despite having been accepted years ago into Western alliances.