Bulgaria’s government talks blow up as Mariya Gabriel withdraws bid to be PM

Former EU Commissioner Mariya Gabriel on Monday withdrew her nomination to be the next Bulgarian prime minister.

Gabriel’s withdrawal capped two weeks of tortuous negotiations between her center-right GERB party and the reformist anti-corruption alliance of We Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria (PP-DB) in what was supposed to be an agreed government rotation.

In a note to the speaker of Bulgaria’s National Assembly, Gabriel said that the “coordinated refusal” of 11 ministers to participate in her proposed government “and the lack of agreement during the subsequent negotiations, renders meaningless the procedure for electing prime minister and Cabinet,” according to several local media reports.

“Thus, in practice, the development of the constitutional procedure cannot end successfully,” Gabriel added. 

Nikolai Denkov, who represents We Continue the Change, led Bulgaria’s government for the first nine months of the planned rotation, with Gabriel as his deputy and foreign minister. He resigned earlier this month, theoretically paving the way for Gabriel to become prime minister for the next nine months.

Gabriel, who previously ran the EU’s digital and innovation portfolios across two terms as a European commissioner, left the EU post last year after being picked as prime minister nominee by the former leader and GERB boss Boyko Borissov.

Now it’s all fallen apart — and, as the second-largest party in parliament, Denkov’s We Continue the Change is next in line to have the chance to form a government.

We Continue the Change said the proposed composition of the Council of Ministers was not agreed with them.

“Not a small part of the nominated ministers did not agree to participate in such a Cabinet, including myself; I have never agreed to participate in a Cabinet with such composition,” Denkov said. “In this situation, I have prepared a declaration in which I state that I do not want to be nominated in this composition of the Council of Ministers.” 

Meanwhile Kiril Petkov, leader of the We Continue the Change party, said that Gabriel had showed she didn’t have the qualities to be prime minister — and also slammed Borissov.

“To be prime minister, you must have basic integrity. You must have courage, leadership skills and not bend. I feel sorry for her. I feel ashamed for Mr. Borissov because all these days he did not appear even once to negotiate with us. He did not pick up the phones,” Petkov said.