The post-election path in Bulgaria is bad news for Macedonia

epa09108201 A cleaning employee sweeps in front of campaign posters of Bulgaria's center-right ruling GERB party with pictures of Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov in Bankaj, Bulgaria, 31 March 2021. Bulgaria will hold parliamentary elections on 04 April 2021. EPA-EFE / VASSIL DONEV

First, the very formation of a government is uncertain, and perhaps the good news is that the entry of the nationalist Karakachanov into parliament hangs in the balance, but the bad news is that now the second strongest political option, Slavi Trifunov's party, has expressed anti-Macedonian positions.

Quite unexpectedly, the GERB party of the current Prime Minister Boyko Borisov won the parliamentary elections in neighboring Bulgaria, and quite surprisingly, the second political force in Bulgaria became the party "Such a People Has" by Slavi Trifunov.

Thus, Borisov's party won about 55% of the votes, "Such a people has" won the trust of 25% of voters, the strongest opposition party BSP won 15%, and Karakachanov's VMRO with 3,55 hangs on the threshold of the required 4% to enter in parliament.

Given that showman Trifunov's party has announced that it will not form a coalition with any political force that has so far "kept Bulgaria in a spasm", forming a government will be very difficult for Borisov in the 240-seat parliament, which needs a 120-member majority. Aware of the situation, Borisov immediately last night at midnight immediately offered to form an expert government that would lead Bulgaria until December, to fight the pandemic, after which another election could be held. While an uncertain political period is coming in Bulgaria, it is clear that the election result is bad news for Macedonia's European integration.

Representatives of the Macedonian government, the last of which is the Minister of Foreign Affairs Bujar Osmani, often spread optimism that after the elections in Bulgaria, the negotiations on the Macedonian-Bulgarian dispute could start. But it is now clear that this is the last thing on the agenda of Bulgarian politicians.

First, the very formation of a government is uncertain, and perhaps the good news is that the entry of the nationalist Karakachanov into parliament hangs in the balance, but the bad news is that now the second strongest political option, Slavi Trifunov's party, has expressed anti-Macedonian positions. If, miraculously, Borisov manages to form a government in it, he will have to be one of the parties that has strong views regarding Macedonia. And if Borisov himself has so far been perceived as a "good guy" in relation to Macedonia, the question is how true that is.

Boyko Borisov proved to be the ideological twin of his Macedonian colleague Zoran Zaev, and the common name of the two is that their main driving ideology is pragmatism. So Borisov came to Skopje and paid homage to the grave of Goce Delchev, just as Zaev tried to find a middle ground with the Bulgarian positions. But it turned out that Borisov's position was inconsistent with the Bulgarian hard positions on the Macedonian issue that exist not only in Karakachanov's VMRO and other entities, but also in Borisov's GERB itself.

Let us recall that the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the main "hawk" of the Bulgarian policy towards Macedonia is from GERB, just like Andrej Kovachev, the MEP who seems to be obsessed with the Macedonian issue. In the second possible option, if Borisov manages to form an expert government, it is hard to imagine that such a body would deal with resolving such a difficult historical issue as the Macedonian one.

Experts who would form the government would concentrate on the situation with the Kovid pandemic and the Bulgarian economy, and issues with Skopje would be frozen. No one can expect that such an expert panel would be willing to take responsibility for resolving a historic dispute, and then be remembered as a "traitor" in Bulgaria.

The other options in the Bulgarian political solution are for the president to give the mandate to the second, third and still political option that should form a government. If they fail, which is more than certain, Bulgaria will go to re-elections.

When we analyze all the options regarding the negotiations with Macedonia, it is clear that the situation will remain the status quo. The optimism spread by the Macedonian ministers for a possible start of the negotiations in June, so far seems quite unjustified. Let us remember that from June, France will take over the EU presidency instead of Portugal, which, despite the statements of the French representatives, is not good news for the European integration of Macedonia and Albania.

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