A month ago, Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski publicly admitted that his government has been programmed to be a buffer between the previous cabinet of GERB party and the next one, and ten days ago he announced that Parliament may vote on his resignation between July 23 and 25. Yesterday the Speaker of Parliament Mihail Mihov said that the resignation of the Cabinet will be voted on July 23, if the Prime Minister Oresharski hands it in. The events of recent days suggest that the Oresharski experiment has crumbled on its own even before it had formally ended.

While at the European Council in Brussels Oresharski supported the candidacy of Bulgarian EU Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva close to GERB for the post of EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, the leader of the Socialist Party which formed his government - Sergey Stanishev, argued that this post should be entrusted to a candidate from the Party of European Socialists. Meanwhile, in Sofia, the Socialist Party compromised its own government, refusing to support the proposal to update the budget. 14 months after the formation of the cabinet, between the party that is the mandate holder and its prime mandate obviously a collapse has occurred. We are witnessing a decomposition of the cabinet after more than a year of stubborn refusal to hear the calls for its resignation. This disintegration paints a complex picture in this country.

Boycotted by the opposition GERB party and the nationalist party Ataka, the parliament is not functioning. GERB says it will return to parliament only to vote the resignation of the Cabinet, and such has not been handed in yet. However, there is a government project to update the national budget and the budget of the National Health Insurance Fund, which may be voted only by this legislative body. Without an update, the activity of the future caretaker government and the health care system may be blocked.

The situation in the political sphere is not simple, either. The relations between the ruling Socialist Party and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms /MRF/ are strained. The Oresharski cabinet is actually stepping down because of the refusal of the MRF to continue to support it. Under these circumstances, the Socialist Party will not emerge stronger and it will be forced to replace its leader before the early elections. The winner in this situation is GERB but it seems not enough to win a majority alone in the new parliament. If GERB decided again to rule alone, even without their own majority, it may be that the Oresharski government was just a meaningless buffer between an old and a new Government of GERB because of which the country has lost more than a year. The representation of Bulgaria in the European Commission will have to be proposed by the caretaker government, appointed by the President, who is close to GERB. That could tip the balance in favor of the nomination of a EU commissioner designated by GERB, but it can also reduce the chances of Bulgaria to receive a heavy portfolio in the European Commission, because what is happening in Bulgaria imposes a sense of political instability and unpredictability.