{"id":19701,"date":"2025-01-17T09:40:10","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T09:40:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/?p=19701"},"modified":"2025-01-17T09:40:10","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T09:40:10","slug":"bulgaria-finally-has-a-government-but-will-reform-be-on-its-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/?p=19701","title":{"rendered":"Bulgaria finally has a government, but will reform be on its agenda?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Adoption of the euro as early as January 2026 is now a real possibility for Bulgaria, if its new coalition can stick together.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the first time since 2021, Bulgaria has a permanent government, although not, perhaps, the government it needs. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On January 16, the country\u2019s parliament approved a cabinet led by Rosen Zhelyazkov (pictured above), a former parliament speaker, ending years of political instability\u2014including no fewer than seven general elections in the space of just over three years.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Zhelyazkov is a member of the centre-right GERB party, which won 69 seats in the 240-seat legislature at Bulgaria\u2019s last parliamentary election in October. His cabinet includes members of leftist, populist and centrist parties\u2014but its majority is thin, commanding just 125 seats.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Zhelyazkov has vowed to maintain Bulgaria\u2019s pro-European and pro-NATO course, part of the coalition is the Bulgarian Socialist party and the populist There is Such a People movement\u2014both of which have members with pro-Russian sympathies. The openly pro-Russian Vazrazhdane party is not part of the coalition, however.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Perhaps most importantly, We Continue the Change\/Democratic Bulgaria, a reformist coalition, is also not part of the new government, meaning that while the country could be set for a period of relative political stability, the real reform Bulgaria needs (notably clamping down on corruption and reform of the judicial system) is unlikely to go ahead.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nevertheless, Bulgaria will refocus on adopting the euro, Zhelyazkov said, with an adoption date of January 2026 now a real possibility.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bulgaria has fulfilled all criteria for membership (the last was bringing its inflation rate within the bloc\u2019s range) and a positive assessment from the European Central Bank is expected in the coming months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-cyan-bluish-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Photo: <a href=\"https:\/\/parliament.bg\/en\/news\/ID\/5885\">Parliament of Bulgaria<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-cyan-bluish-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>If you would like to discuss the new Bulgarian government further, and what it means for business and investment,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/emerging-europe.com\/contact\/\">get in touch<\/a> to schedule a call with one of our analysts.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-text-color has-background has-cyan-bluish-gray-background-color has-cyan-bluish-gray-color is-style-wide\"\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Adoption of the euro as early as January 2026 is now a real possibility for Bulgaria, if its new coalition can stick together. For the first<span class=\"excerpt-hellip\"> [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[6579,8240,8243,21,6320,7438,6596,8244,6613,7703,7440],"class_list":["post-19701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-bulgaria","tag-bulgaria-euro-membership","tag-bulgarian-socialist-party","tag-economy-politics","tag-featured","tag-gerb","tag-nato","tag-rosen-zhelyazkov","tag-society","tag-there-is-such-a-people","tag-we-continue-the-change"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reinvantage-dev.eonserver.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}