So, after all that, the Bulgarian politicians recognized the burden of the moment and, while recognizing the many tangible and intangible differences that separate them, they used the past two months to engage in conversations about the local and global economy and the EU recovery funds and the war in Ukraine and justice reform and constitutional law and I am kidding. There is no particular end in sight, either to the perpetual (and common) squabbling, or to the general deadlock, with no party or even broad camp achieving anything close to a breakthrough. In all likelihood, there is no end in sight of the elections, either.
But with the end of the year comes a time to reflect on what one won and lost over the past period and I thought I'd write up the winter of Bulgarian broad and deep discontent resigned apathy through the eyes of the main political players.
Haha, this thread is really fantastic. Thank you for all the detail.
Euro adoption seems to be the only thing the parties can agree on (along with EU funds absorption/Schengen it seems). As far as I understand, assuming the Commission waives the inflation requirement given the invasion of Ukraine, there's only one facet that Bulgaria isn't complying with - that "each Member State shall ensure that its national legislation, including the statutes of its national central bank, is compatible with these Treaties." European media seem to just be assuming that Bulgaria will meet the legal compatibility criteria by the June convergence assessment then and so will adopt the Euro in January 2024.
But is the dead parliament actually making progress on conforming to the legislation or will Bulgaria fail to meet the legal requirements by June? What even needs to be done? The talk about technical negotiations seems like malarkey to me, surely there's legislation that needs to be passed.
