Chairperson and Co-Founder of the Institute for Global Analytics, Bulgaria. Author of Constructing the Limits of Europe: Identity and Foreign Policy in Poland, Bulgaria, and Russia since 1989 (Ibidem press/Columbia UP 2022).
Bulgaria will go to the polls on 2 April for the fifth time in two years, without there being any prospects of a resolution to the stalemate between liberal and pro-Russian forces. Caught in permanent election mode, the country is becoming increasingly isolated from Europe, while authoritarian influences gain ground.
Disagreements over military aid to Ukraine threatened Bulgaria’s ruling coalition and were resolved thanks only to a compromise mediated by Volodymyr Zelensky. But pro-neutrality stances still find support across the political spectrum. Bulgaria’s balancing act between Russia and the West follows an established pattern.