A year before Bulgaria’s next parliamentary elections, the three ruling parties decided to stick to the proportions in the 2005 coalition Cabinet agreement, but changed some of the faces. The agreement gives the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) eight Cabinet ministers, the National Movement for Stability and Progress (NMSP) five and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) three ministers. 

The ruling parties decided on April 22 to replace a total of four ministers. The BSP replaced Interior Minister Roumen Petkov with Mihail Mikov, the BSP’s floor leader in Parliament, and Health Minister Radoslav Gaidarski with former Stara Zagora mayor Evgenii Zhelev. The NMSP replaced Defence Minister Vesselin Bliznakov with the relatively unknown Nikolai Tsonev, head of the Ministry’s Social Activities Agency. The MRF replaced Agriculture Minister Nihat Kabil with a little-known professor of agricultural studies, Valeri Tsvetanov.

Keeping the trend of the past seven years, no explanation was given for the replacement of the four ministers. While Petkov resigned on April 13, following his admission that he had held meetings with people under police investigation, the other three ministers said nothing about why their party leaders wanted to replace them.  

The Cabinet reshuffles requested by Prime Minister and BSP leader Sergei Stanishev on April 11 led to only one structural change. The ruling parties decided to create a new Cabinet post, that of deputy prime minister without portfolio, who will supervise and control the spending of European Union funds. The current ambassador to Germany, Meglena Plougchieva, a former member of the BSP, will occupy this post. 

The post of deputy prime minister without portfolio was suggested by Stanishev as a response to the European Commission’s criticism that Bulgaria lacked transparency in its spending of EU funds.

The changes were applauded by President Georgi Purvanov, who described Plougchieva’s appointment as “a  great choice”. Speaking to reporters on April 23, Purvanov said that Plougchieva needed Stanishev’s full support to succeed because “according to the constitution a deputy prime minister does not have the right to act as a supervisor of cabinet ministers”. 

Speaking to Bulgarian National Television on April 22, Alexander Bozhkov, co-chairperson of the Institute for Economic Development and former deputy prime minister, said that Plougchieva had the qualities for the position but that her role would simply be the Government’s “mailbox” to the EC.

European Commission spokesman Mark Gray said that appointments and resignations were internal issues for Bulgaria. Nevertheless, the EC was appraising the changes.

Most Bulgarian media described the changes as cosmetic, particularly in the light of Stanishev’s statements over the past fortnight that the Government could not rule out the possibility of early elections.

Staishev made this statement on April 11 when the Cabinet survived a no confidence motion in Parliament on the grounds of the Government’s alleged ties with organised crime. The NMSP abstained from voting, a decision that triggered stern reactions from Stanishev, Purvanov and the BSP. The media was even moved to suggest that Stanishev would “punish” the NMSP by limiting its representation in the Cabinet.

“You have seen that talk of the NMSP leaving the coalition was just a facade and nothing like this has happened,” Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov told reporters on April 23. He joined other opposition leaders in calling for early elections.