26 August 2024
Over the last three years, Bulgaria has faced no less than six general elections, with a seventh (until recently) scheduled for the 20th of October. Despite repeated elections, Sofia has struggled to create a stable government, a reality that has gone largely unrecognised among most. This week it was reported that President Rumen Radev has refused to sign a decree approving the formation of a caretaker government to fill the void left after the inability of the GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria, Grazhdani za evropeysko razvitie na Bŭlgaria) to form a coalition Government after June’s election. Ironically, the President’s unprecedented rejection stems from a conflict with his own nominee for a new interim Prime Minister, Goritsa Grancharova-Kozhareva, and for the same reason the GERB failed to form a coalition in the first place.
The issue is Kozhareva’s insistence on maintaining Kalin Stoyanov as Interior Minister. Stoyanov who has faced criticisms for police violence during protests, is accused of having ties to Delyan Peevski a Bulgarian media tycoon and one of Bulgaria’s most powerful oligarchs who is under US and UK sanctions for corruption. A large segment of the Bulgarian Parliament alleges Stoyanov is working for Peevski and questions the integrity of any election under his watch at a time when Russian influence on social media continues to thrive in Bulgaria. This concern is the basis for President Radev’s rejection and the postponement of the October election. As if to drive home these concerns, in the last two weeks Sofia has twice witnessed police officers protesting against Stoyanov’s removal, thus provoking further criticisms concerning his influence over law enforcement as it would relate to the elections. With Kozhareva’s refusal to consider Stoyanov’s removal from the cabinet of her proposed interim government and President Radev’s rejection the political crisis deepens. In the meantime, the current caretaker government of Dimitar Glavchev will remain in power for the foreseeable future as parliament attempts to present a new shortlist of potential Prime Ministers to replace Kozhareva.
Bulgaria’s political (perhaps constitutional) crisis is not unique to the Balkans. The most obvious example to point to is the recent brawl that broke out in the Turkish Parliament concerning the parliamentary immunity stripped from jailed opposition leader Can Atalay. Although this speaks to the growing discontent with Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) the problem is one that spans the region. In North Macedonia, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski, who took office in June (roughly the same time as the last Bulgarian election), has warned his country is at risk of being destabilised by internal ethnic conflict. He has accused his political rivals, specifically the largest Albanian opposition party, Democratic Union for Integration (DUI), of being behind the plot to destabilise the country. Although the DUI leadership led a short-lived armed insurgency against the state security forces in 2001 it has since acted as a ruling partner in several governments. They have, however, voiced serious objections to their exclusion from Mickoski’s coalition government, accusing the PM of sidelining the Albanian minority of the country. This has legal foundations as the Ohrid Peace Accord of 2001 altered the constitution to ensure positive discrimination of the ethnic Albanian population in the public service. The situation is still developing but likewise has the potential to throw yet another Balkan state into a political crisis in the near future.
The timing of these slowly advancing crises, and their overlap is both alarming and unsurprising. Rising tensions are developing across the region both in terms of internal affairs as well as regarding relationships between neighbouring Balkan states. Montenegrin relations with Croatia have taken an unfortunate turn as a recent diplomatic row has emerged just as Montenegro was poised to join the European Union. The Montenegrin parliament recently voted to blame Croatia for crimes committed by the Ustaše during the Second World War. This is not entirely without merit, Croatia and its political class have a deeply problematic relationship with their Second World War history, to be fair this is not a unique condition among Balkan states. That however is neither here nor there, the timing of this vote ensures that these two NATO allies find themselves at odds at a time when Croatia’s approval will be required to continue Montenegro’s EU membership process.
The vote against Croatia was spearheaded by Andrija Mandic, who had previously been indicted for participating in a Kremlin-instigated coup. Like many of these crises, Moscow has a significant role in inflaming these tensions that the West must pay greater attention to. Indeed, Russia has very clearly set its sights on the Balkans, particularly Montenegro. Since it joined NATO in 2017 Russia has been intensely targeting Montenegro through financing pro-Russia political parties, pursuing cyberattacks, the disseminating disinformation through Russian-controlled media not to mention attempted coups. One might recall that Montenegrin officers assigned to NATO were dismissed for being Russian spies. As tensions increase it is also worth noting that Croatia has recently reintroduced a two-month compulsory military service in direct response to heightened tensions in the region since the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Much of Russia’s activity in the Balkans is made possible through the support of its regional proxy Serbia. For this reason, it is worth noting any shift in Serbia’s stance towards the West. Recently President Milorad Dodik of the Serbian Republika Srpska of Bosnia-Herzegovina made the bewildering claim that he has never pursued a policy of secession or disputed the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia under the Dayton Agreement. This is untrue, Dodik has on numerous occasions publicly declared that independence and unification of Republika Srpska with Serbia were his ultimate aims. This softening of the message as part of a larger information war is occurring at the same time that Kosovo Serbs are expressing outrage over plans to open the controversial Mitrovica bridge, which speaks to the reality that Kosovo Serbs (rightly or wrongly) do not wish to be a part of Kosovo, but of a Greater Serbia.
Simultaneously Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has been making overtures to the West and, when one looks at the Serbia situation as a whole, certainly there appears to be a softening of the Serbian position, but one that is still terribly complex. Notably Serbia recently appointed its first Jewish Foreign Minister, former Ambassador to the US Marko Djuric, as part of a larger effort to reset ties with the US and Israel. Israel has been a specific focus for advancing US-Serbian relations which are viewed in Belgrade as inextricably linked. After Israel’s recognition of Kosovo’s independence in 2020 this represents a significant turn in Serbian foreign policy. Indeed, last October, Serbia appointed a new ambassador to Tel Aviv after the position had been vacant for nearly three years. In addition, Serbia has taken practical measures as well and since 7 October Serbian state and private weapons suppliers have been shipping weapons and ammunition to Israel. The results are starting to show, in July, Djuric was invited to attend a dinner hosted by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the 2024 NATO Summit in Washington.
Vučić has also recently succeeded in locking down a deal to supply the European Union with lithium for EV battery production. However, his pivot to the West has reignited the anti-western hostility that he himself has helped stoke in Serbia for years. The result has been mass protests in Belgrade which Vučić has ironically accused of being part of Western-backed “hybrid” warfare against his government to overthrow him, based on information received from Russia. This, as Vučić defends the mine as a testament to the great strides Serbia has made in getting closer to the West. Equally paradoxical, Vučić’s critics argue that in engaging with the West on a project that would almost certainly improve Serbia’s economy he has condemned Serbia to the status of ‘a colony of all the great powers’ where further Western ‘economic exploitation and environmental pollution will only put Western standards of democracy and accountability further out of reach.’
This speaks to the delicate situation in Serbia, which is central to the stability of the Balkans. It is clear that Serbia is making a concerted effort to improve relations and recast itself as a modern progressive European state that embraces multiculturalism and the protection of the rights and freedoms of national minorities. However, as long as Vučić, perhaps understandably from his perspective, continues to walk his tightrope between Moscow and the West, Serbia can and indeed will be used by Russia to destabilise the Balkans as part of their own larger offensive against the West. This is a critical point for the West in terms of addressing the deteriorating situation in the region, which Serbia could play a critical role in checking. Positive engagement with Serbia represents an essential cornerstone of any strategy to address the situation, which must be approached regionally, as a whole, not on a country-by-country basis. However, as much as it would be a most welcome development for the Balkans to see Serbia genuinely move towards Brussels and Washington, and away from Moscow, considerable caution in pursuing reconciliation with Belgrade is required on both sides for not only practical security reasons but also because this idea will take time to process.
Feature Photo: Council Of Ministers, Bulgaria, 2015. Wikimedia Commons, 2024.
Inset Photo: Rumen Radev. Budapest Demographic Summit 2023. Budapest, Central Europe. Wikimedia Commons, 2024.
Inset Photo: Kalin Stoyanov – Acting Minister of Interior. Wikimedia Commons, 2024.
Inset Photo: Can Atalay in Sakarya (cropped), 2023. Wikimedia Commons, 2024.
Inset Photo: Hristijan Mickoski official portrait, 2024 . Wikimedia Commons, 2024.
Inset Photo: Andrija Mandić voting in the Presidential election 2023. Wikimedia Commons, 2024.
Inset Photo: Visit of Milorad Dodik to the EC, 2022. Wikimedia Commons, 2024.
Inset Photo: Marko Đurić, 2024. Wikimedia Commons, 2024.
Inset Photo: Protest against lithium mining in Belgrade, 10 August 2024. Wikimedia Commons, 2024.
Inset Photo: Aleksandar Vučić, President of Serbia, in France, European Commission 2022. Wikimedia Commons, 2024.
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