Bulgaria\u2019s establishment collapsed under its own corruption and popular discontent just as it was about to get accepted into the Eurozone<\/p>\n
A kid isn\u2019t totally to blame when it acts like a lunatic in public. Particularly when you take a good look at the parents. Such is the case of the Bulgarian establishment \u2013 the European Union\u2019s latest \u201cfoster kid\u201d on the verge of being fully adopted into the family, despite being in the middle of a full-blown public meltdown.
\nBulgaria is supposed to join the EU\u2019s common euro currency zone, the Eurozone, on January 1, 2026, completely integrating into the bloc. And the country\u2019s officials have had since January 2007, when it was accepted as a member of the EU, to get their act together and stop greasing each other\u2019s palms like it\u2019s a schoolyard game. Ostensibly, that\u2019s why these things are done incrementally. Because it takes time to teach politicians that public cookie jars are not meal stations.
\nBrussels has had 19 years to teach these basic lessons. But since \u201cQueen\u201d Ursula von der Leyen and her merry band of Eurobozos are big on optics and lectures but not so much on actual discipline and results, that didn\u2019t happen.
\nSo just as Bulgaria is supposed to integrate into the EU economy as the newest paragon of stability, it turns out that the government took one look at the latest protest action in the streets and basically hit the self-destruct button.
\n\u201cOur coalition met, we discussed the current situation, the challenges we face and the decisions we must responsibly make,\u201d Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov said while stepping down with his coalition government. \u201cOur desire is to be at the level that society expects.\u201d
\nThat would be ground level. After a swan dive.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
EU member\u2019s government resigns amid anti-corruption protests<\/p>\n
Hard to imagine a better moment for a country to more deeply integrate into the EU than right when it\u2019s yanking out its own political wiring. What\u2019s truly remarkable is that the EU\u2019s fitness evaluation focused on technical fiscal criteria like price stability, public finances, exchange-rate stability, and long-term interest rates. Bulgaria nailed those metrics. But somehow, corruption was treated like a footnote, because apparently checking for graft is an optional add-on service.
\nOther EU bodies, like the European Public Prosecutor\u2019s Office and the Anti-Fraud Office, have been investigating serious allegations of systemic corruption involving top Bulgarian officials and EU funds. No big deal, though. Just waltz on in.
\nHere are a few of those \u201cminor\u201d details: The EU identified\u00a0\u201cirregularities of over \u20ac140 million\u201d\u00a0($165 million) in EU funding for railway infrastructure in 2023.\u00a0An \u201cindictment over fraud involving EU funds for employment support\u201d\u00a0made headlines in 2025. Charges were laid against Bulgarian officials over alleged fraud last year related to a \u20ac3.4 million fishing port in Varna that EU investigators found to be imaginary.\u00a0The EU accused Bulgarian officials of procurement fraud for a million-euro \u201cgreen space\u201d project in Plovdiv.\u00a0And indictments were brought earlier this year over suspected \u20ac6 million in EU construction fund misuse.
\nBut when it comes to integration into the European fiscal family, it\u2019s almost like corruption is treated like some kind of quaint local tradition rather than an actual problem. Not exactly the white-gloved cleanup crew that Brussels markets itself as to Europeans. Or maybe it just needs to keep some glove-free sticky fingers handy, just in case?
\nAnyway, the Bulgarian people seem to have decided to take matters into their own hands \u2013 even after being told by Brussels that it and the euro would be their \u201cguardian angel in a dangerous world.\u201d\u00a0Guess they\u2019re not into fairy tales, since they flooded the streets after their leaders decided to boost spending. Spending on themselves and their cronies, that is.
\nThe EU didn\u2019t seem to care much about any of that. Not enough to postpone eurozone integration, anyway.<\/p>\n
Read more<\/p>\n
EU\u2019s tampering with Russian assets is \u2018theft\u2019 no matter how it\u2019s framed \u2013 Moscow<\/p>\n
What really seems to matter to Brussels is that this Bulgarian government, despite being unable to stick to legal basics, did stick firmly to the establishment-approved script on Ukraine.
\nThis government, which lasted less than a year, basically turned the country into one giant ammo assembly line to jack up European GDP by washing public cash into weapons \u201cfor Ukraine.\u201d Germany\u2019s weapons maker and stock market champion, Rheinmetall, happily siphoning public cash to the point that its\u00a0stock value graph looks like a rocket launch, announced in August that it\u2019s even building an ammo plant in Bulgaria. Surely that has nothing to do with Bulgaria still not fully weaning itself off cheap Russian gas.
\nBulgaria has been bragging about cutting off Russian gas, supposedly by 2028. Guess the average Bulgarian citizen\u00a0wasn\u2019t too thrilled about paying more for energy like the rest of Europe, so now the folks in charge have been chased into the political wilderness by their own people.
\nTime will tell whether the EU will continue turning Bulgaria into one giant dodgy weapons factory fueled by the Russian gas they claim to hate, all under the guise of \u201cfreedom and democracy.\u201d For whom? That\u2019s always the real question. Whose interests are truly served when governance so clearly falters and oversight is blatantly selective: citizens or vested elites?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bulgaria\u2019s establishment collapsed under its own corruption and popular discontent just as it was about to get accepted into the Eurozone A kid isn\u2019t totally to blame when it acts…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24556,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-politics"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/24556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongolianews.mn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}