Bulgaria’s parliament approved a cabinet led by former parliament speaker Rosen Zhelyazkov, bringing an end to months of coalition negotiations.
The centre-right GERB party won a snap election in October, the seventh in the Balkan state in four years, but has had to engage difficult talks with other political groups for more than two months to form a government.
The main parliamentary GERB-SDS bloc presented Zhelyazkov as PM-designate, and President Rumen Radev approved his formation of a cabinet on Wednesday.
In a vote on Thursday, some 125 members of the 240-seat assembly backed Zhelyazkov’s proposed cabinet, paving the way for the inauguration of a new administration.
Since a GERB coalition was overthrown in 2020 due to anti-graft rallies, Bulgaria, the EU’s poorest and most corrupt member, has been beset by revolving-door governments.
For the NATO member to accelerate the inflow of EU funding into its deteriorating infrastructure and encourage it to adopt the euro, political stability is necessary.
Bulgaria, the poorest member of the European Union and one of its most corrupt states, has been plagued by revolving-door governments since anti-graft protests in 2020 unseated a GERB coalition.
Zhelyazkov told the parliament ahead of the vote that “Bulgaria needs a regular government that will implement policies supporting the democratic rule of law, the competitiveness of the economy, security, and protecting citizens’ social rights.”
Bulgaria’s plans to join the euro zone have been pushed back twice because of missed inflation targets.
Zhelyazkov pledged on Wednesday that his government will help the country make it into the single-currency bloc.
