Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said that Bulgaria's EU accession was unlikely to lead to a split of the ruling tripartite coalition, despite predictions of the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the analytic division of The Economist.

At a business forum in Athens EIU said that because of political tension after the expected EU entry in 2007, the term of the ruling coalition could end in advance, 24 Chassa reported.

As the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) lacked the majority to form a cabinet of its own, it entered coalition with National Movement Simeon II (NMSII) and Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF).

Stanishev said that all reports were 'speculative' and that a year ago no one could have predicted that Bulgaria would be governed by the largest coalition in its history. He added that Simeon Saxe-Coburg, leader of NMSII, was positive the coalition should serve its entire term.

Taking into consideration the difficulties in forming the present coalition, preliminary elections would lead only to political destabilisation, Stanishev said.

The Economist predicted that the most likely winner of the next elections was Sofia mayor boiko Borissov's movement Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (CEDB). Stanishev said that according to the latest polls BSP received 20 per cent of the voters' support, whereas CEDB had only 10 per cent.