New Elections? Bulgarian Coalition Talks Collapse as GERB and WCC-DB Fail to Reach Agreement

Negotiations between Bulgarian political parties GERB and "We Continuing the Change - Democratic Bulgaria" (WCC-DB) ended in failure, announced resigned Deputy Prime Minister Mariya Gabriel at a Sunday evening briefing. This announcement followed the conclusion of talks with the partners, during which the last proposal made to WCC-DB, involving only the rotation of the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister without changes to the Council of Ministers composition, was not approved.

Gabriel emphasized that the disagreements did not revolve around regulatory matters, judicial reform, or anti-corruption efforts. Instead, the fundamental differences stemmed from WCC-DB's refusal to accept GERB as an equal partner in the negotiations.

It remains uncertain whether Gabriel will return the unfulfilled mandate on Monday. President Rumen Radev is scheduled to hand over the mandate to the largest political force at noon on Monday. Denitsa Sacheva, Gabriel's colleague, indicated that GERB would grant WCC-DB time until the following day to decide on shared responsibility with GERB.

We remind you that after nine months of governing the country in turbulent times and an uncertain "assembly", the "Denkov" cabinet went down in history on March 7th. It all started when the Bulgarian parliament elected a regular cabinet led by Prime Minister Academician Nikolai Denkov on June 6, 2023, under the mandate of "We Continuing the Change - Democratic Bulgaria" (WCC-DB). On the same day, Prime Minister Denkov and his ministers assumed their roles. This cabinet, described as a "rotational cabinet," was established with a timeframe of nine months. According to the plan, Prime Minister Denkov would step down after this period, and Deputy Prime Minister Mariya Gabriel (GERB), who also serves as the Minister of Foreign Affairs within the 9 months of the “Denkov” cabinet, would assume the role of Prime Minister.

Following the unanimous acceptance of the government's resignation in parliament, President Radev held meetings with all parties represented in the legislature. Subsequently, on Monday he should assign a mandate to GERB as the largest parliamentary group, affording them a week to propose a cabinet.

According to the established procedure, in the event of failure, WCC-DB will receive a mandate and a week to form a government. If unsuccessful, the president retains the prerogative to select the recipient of the final mandate, without a specified deadline for presenting a government composition.

Boyko Borissov issued strong criticism against WCC-DB for what he deemed as hastily voting on the resignation of the Denkov cabinet. He accused them of disrupting negotiations and steering the country towards imminent elections. Although expressing skepticism about the outcome.

At the extraordinary briefing of GERB tonight, it became clear that they will return an empty mandate if "by tomorrow  12:00 PM  WCC-DB are not willing to share power and share responsibility together. Colleagues from the WCC-DB are not ready to share power. They want to keep all the power," said a representative of GERB. "If by 12:00 WCC-DB are willing to share power, and not keep it for themselves, then we can talk."

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