Bulgaria’s election and what it means for Europe

A mere week after Hungarian voters dispatched Viktor Orban, Bulgarians may have returned a new thorn in the EU’s side—albeit a less painful one—in the form of pro-Russian former president Rumen Radev.

Radev and his new “Progressive Bulgaria” (PB) party have won the Bulgarian parliament’s first outright majority since 1997. Having resigned the presidency in January, Radev campaigned on pledges to take down the country’s “mafia state” and end the political instability that meant Sunday’s election was its eighth in five years. But he has not achieved a supermajority. To enact his anti-oligarchic agenda, Radev will likely count on the support of the pro-European “We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria” (PPDB) movement to push through constitutional changes.

In part because of this dependence, on foreign policy the EU can expect Radev sometimes to sound like Orban but end up acting more like Slovakia’s Robert Fico. Or that is what my analysis of the manifestos of Bulgaria’s six main political forces and the public statements of their leaders suggests. Like Fico, Radev will likely voice disagreement with EU policies at home and make ambiguous statements during official meetings. But he is unlikely to block EU decisions on Russian sanctions and support for Ukraine. His government will probably continue to invest in defence capabilities, and since the bloc’s Security Action for Europe loan is Bulgaria’s only source of fresh financing for rearmament, new projects will be implemented primarily in the EU-led framework.

When manifestos meet leaders

To reach these conclusions, I used a large language model (LLM)-based tool to analyse the publicly available manifestos and statements of party leaders between January 23rd 2026 (Radev’s resignation) and April 3rd 2026, with the aim of predicting to what degree the new government would support deeper European defence integration. The analysis covered PB and the country’s five other main parties and coalitions.

The analysis compared the manifestos and statements of the six forces on four key areas of foreign policy. The first was their orientation when it comes to Russia and the West. Then there is whether the parties’ and coalitions’ views on the West lean more towards America and transatlanticism (NATO) or a European-led defence. Third, the analysis looked Middle Eastern issues and the extent to which the parties and their leaders are supportive of Israel and the US or Iran and its proxies. Finally, it compared commitments and statements on defence expenditure and modernisation, and assessed these against the other three policy areas.

If one reads only the manifestos, despite divergence on NATO and Europe, Bulgaria’s new parliament will have a solid pro-Western majority that plans to strengthen the country’s defence

If one reads only the manifestos, despite divergence on NATO and Europe, Bulgaria’s new parliament will have a solid pro-Western majority that plans to strengthen the country’s defence. But when leaders’ statements enter the mix, a rather different picture reveals itself. Overall PPDB is the most pro-European and pro-defence political group across manifesto and leaders, consistent with their campaign slogan: “Strong Bulgaria in a Strong Europe”. Meanwhile PB undergoes the biggest shifts in position once leaders’ statements are taken into account.

Across the board, Radev’s pronouncements subdue the party’s manifesto theme of supporting defence modernisation and spending 5% of GDP on defence. And his pro-Russian views are evident in claims like “sanctions against Moscow bring no concrete benefits and only harm the economies of Russia and the European Union” and “It is not normal to import oil from distant countries, through straits with high fees and risk, when the cheap oil, for which our [Lukoil-owned] refinery is adapted, is two days away by direct route across the Black Sea [that is, buying from Russia].” He has also voiced a firm opposition to the signing of the Security Cooperation Agreement between Bulgaria and Ukraine. This is despite the fact that, throughout the campaign, he gave interviews in a highly controlled environment.

Since the beginning of April, other PB leaders have made telling statements of their own. During a public debate on April 14th, when asked “Whose is Crimea?” one PB representative, an experienced lawyer, stated: “The outcome of the war will provide the answer,” while the second representative did not give a straight answer to the question “Is Putin an aggressor?”[1] The same evening, at PB’s culminating event in a sports arena, the participants entertained photos from the 2019 meeting between Radev and Putin, with huge Bulgarian and Russian flags in the background. Still, on the balance of manifesto promises and recent statements, a PB government seems unlikely to be as extreme as Orban on Russia and Ukraine.

PB’s leader statements also cause the biggest shift when it comes to choosing the US or Europe as the most important security partner. Once leaders’ statements are taken into account, PB moves from a high defence effort slightly favouring Europe, to lower effort slightly favouring NATO. Other parties diverge among themselves: PPDB has a clear pro-European position; MRF and GERB are pro-American, though GERB drifts a little towards Europe once leaders’ statements are included. (All the positions and statements analysed came in 2026, after Donald Trump had spent a year back in the Oval Office.) The remaining parties take either a relatively balanced stance or do not distinguish between the two. 

The conflicts in the Middle East did not feature heavily in manifestos or the leaders’ statements. Yet, GERB and MRF, followed by PPDB, are broadly most supportive of Israeli and US policies. Revival, on the other hand, did not mention the issue in their programme. But once the joint strikes on Iran started in February, they took a vocal anti-Israeli, anti-American position.

These alignments suggest a Radev government will continue to invest in Bulgaria’s defence. And, despite the slight preference for NATO once leaders’ statements are taken into account, the new government’s budgetary constraints mean its investment will probably take place within a framework of European integration.

Nevertheless, when the reality of manifestos and leaders meets the reality of power, a Radev government may still act in unpredictable ways.

When reality meets power

Indeed, LLM-based tools cannot (yet) capture the sheer extent to which leaders sometimes diverge from their manifesto commitments in Bulgarian politics.

In December 2025, for example, Bulgaria’s largest protests in decades prompted the resignation of prime minister Rosen Zhelyazkov and his GERB-MRF supported cabinet. But, at January’s World Economic Forum in Davos, Zhelyazkov still became a founding signatory of Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace”. This meant Bulgaria joined Hungary as the only EU states among Trump’s members. On March 13th 2026, in an MRF proposal supported by GERB, the parliament obliged the new caretaker government to introduce a draft law for ratification of the agreement—a decision deemed unconstitutional. It is plausible that the pro-US orientation of GERB and MRF relates to the sanctions on Peevski and one regional GERB leader under the Magnitsky Act (or their goal to see Trump lift them).

Their leaning runs contrary to public opinion. In one March 2026 survey, Bulgarians were asked to select a single strategic partner: over 56% chose Europe while only 8% opted for America (and 19.5% Russia). Of course, such foreign policy and defence issues were not decisive in securing Radev’s win. But he will also need a pro-European force in parliament (PPDB) to replace the Supreme Judicial Council (the mandate of which expired long ago) and, consequently, the chief prosecutor (who has been performing his role unconstitutionally for almost a year).

This dependence on PPDB and the tide of public opinion will likely constrain Radev to the role of Fico in the EU—the most one can hope for in Bulgaria’s foreign policy and role in European security in the years to come.

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[1] The author was present at the debate and quotes from his notes.