A president in the trenches

THE two buildings are practically neighbours. The cabinet is housed on No. 1 Dondukov Boulevard and the presidency occupies No. 2 across the street in the centre of Sofia. But the institutions inside them couldn’t be further apart.

As anti-government protests in Bulgaria continue for more than ten weeks, the president, Rosen Plevneliev, and the Socialist-led government are entrenched in a cold war. The political crisis in European Union’s poorest member shows no sign of abating.

The row also marks a shift in the presidency’s role. Mr Plevneliev, a former technocratic minister of public works in the government of Boyko Borisov, has transformed it from a largely ceremonial institution to an active, and often controversial, participant in Bulgaria’s political life.

The latest skirmish occurred around the revised budget, which would allow the government to raise €500m ($660m) in new debt in the hope of stimulating the struggling economy. Mr Plevneliev vetoed the budget bill in early August saying that while he supports increased social expenditures, he does not want to do so at the cost of raising the national debt (two thrifty decades and a tough currency-board regime have left Bulgaria with one of the lowest debt-to-GDP ratios in Europe, at only 18.5% in 2012). But the...Continue reading