A group of opposition parties, citing what it describes as the incompetence of Bulgaria’s Government in dealing with European Union funds, plans to table a motion of no confidence in Bulgaria’s Cabinet by July 20 – three days before the publication of what is widely expected to be a highly critical report on Bulgaria by the European Commission.

Reporting from Parliament on July 10, Bulgarian news agency BTA quoted Bulgarian Popular Union co-chairperson Stefan Sofianski as saying that all opposition parties and independents had been involved in consultations on the motion of no confidence, which will be the sixth since the country’s tripartite governing coalition took office in August 2005.

The EC report to be released on July 23 will give Brussels’s view on Bulgaria’s progress – or, as it is widely expected to conclude, lack thereof – against organised crime and corruption, issues for which Bulgaria has continued to attract severe criticism after EU accession.

BTA quoted Sofianski as saying that the basis for the motion would the financial and moral damage caused to Bulgaria by the non-absorption of EU funds.

Sofianski said that in the months since Bulgaria joined the EU on January 1 2007, the “inadequate and incompetent” conduct of the Government had lost the country more than a billion euro in EU funds, and there was no guarantee that the money would be used in the next few months.

The opposition hoped that the required number of signatures to table the motion would be collected by July 17.

It appears that opposition parties hope to add to their attack a salvo against Emel Etem, the Deputy Prime Minister who also acts as Emergency Situations Minister. Etem has come under fire for what critics see as the Government’s failure to respond to, and to give full information about, the explosions on July 3 at a military munitions dump near Chelopechene outside Sofia. The blasts caused extensive damage to property and led to a temporary evacuation of residents of nearby neighbourhoods and the closure of Sofia Airport for much of the day.

Minority opposition parties the right-wing Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria and the centre-right Union of Democratic Forces already have made public calls for Etem to resign. Etem was also at the centre of one of the earlier failed attempts, in April 2006, to get Parliament to approve a motion of no confidence over Government shortcomings in responding to severe floods.

The April 2006 motion was followed in March 2007 by a motion tabled on the basis of Government under-performance in health care. This motion was defeated by 163 votes to 30 with one abstention.

A succession of motions followed, but each was given scant chances of succeeding, given that the tripartite coalition made up the Bulgarian Socialist Party-dominated Coalition for Bulgaria (CfB), the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) – a party led and supported mainly by Bulgarians of ethnic Turkish descent, and Simeon Saxe-Coburg’s National Movement for Stability and Progress (NMSP) share a large majority of MPs in the 240-seat National Assembly.

A motion of no confidence over what opposition parties saw as Government fumbling of a prolonged strike by teachers in October 2007 failed, by 160 votes to 61, as did a February 2008 motion on the Cabinet’s failure to achieve success against endemic corruption in Bulgaria, although this latter vote was notable for Nikolai Kamov, leader of the social democrat bloc in the CfB, joining the opposition in voting against the Government, meaning that there were a total of 86 votes in favour of the motion.

A twist came with the fifth motion of no confidence, in April 2008. Amid a large-scale public and media controversy over the conduct of then-interior minister Roumen Petkov, the motion that ensued was defeated with the support of BSP and MRF MPs, but the NMSP parliamentary group abstained. It meant an outcome of 117 votes against the motion, 82 in favour and 35 abstentions. The NMSP said at the time that it had decided to take a position of “constructive criticism” against its two partners in Government.

The public display of dissonance between the coalition partners led to special meetings and negotiations and a Cabinet reshuffle.

The saga of what, it appears, will become six motions of no confidence takes place against a background of continuing calls by opposition parties in the light of what these parties see as the declining political fortunes of the Government.

While the highly-mobilised MRF electorate has tended to produce the same level of support for the party, as evidenced by the 2007 municipal elections and in opinion polls, both the BSP and the NMSP have shed support, the latter especially so. Several polls have written off the chances of the NMSP getting over the minimum threshold to return to Parliament after Bulgaria’s parliamentary elections scheduled for 2009.

The coming force on the Bulgarian political scene is widely perceived as Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria (abbreviated in Bulgaria as GERB, the word for “coat of arms”) led by national political heavyweight Boiko Borissov, currently the mayor of Sofia.

A succession of polls by various agencies in recent months consistently have indicated that Borissov’s GERB will win the largest share of seats in Parliament in 2009, and Borissov, since his party produced a strong performance in the 2007 municipal elections, frequently has made calls for ahead-of-term elections so that his party can take what he sees as its rightful place as the largest bloc in Parliament.

Currently, however, unless there is a massive revolt by Government coalition MPs either in the form of voting against the Cabinet or abstaining, a sixth motion of confidence would appear to be destined to match the fate of the first five.