All the January exchange, petrol and Middle East quake developments marked the entrance into a new phase, according to experts from the Ivan Hadjiyski Institute for Sociology. “Neither the quota distribution of migrants, nor their holding by Turkey and their stopping on the Greek border are working solutions. The Dublin Regulation for readmission is not complied with. Schengen is partially and temporarily blocked and now the deepening of the migrant crisis leads to a sort of an ultimatum time and quicker decisions on the part of Brussels will be demanded more and more in Europe,” the analysis reads.

This country’s foreign policy gets more and more concentrated in the hands of PM Boyko Borissov within this complicated international situation.

“We think that Borissov tries to turn his balancing stance into his own political face and national interest,” says political analyst Parvan Simeonov. “He tries to turn Bulgaria’s luck so far /with no international problems/ into capital. Bulgaria guards well the European borders and is among the few stable states in this really shaky region. Borissov realizes that the situation should be used to the maximum, not only through balancing, but also trying to get some benefit out of it. It is a topic of another conversation whether the man has the potential to do it, as he has proven his leadership abilities, but not any visionary ones here in Bulgaria. However, the European territory is something much more complicated. Let’s see what happens next…”

The institute’s analysis claims that an advance is viewed in Bulgaria’s political spectrum, both from the rightist and the leftist powers. Expert circles, close to the “old right” want to achieve via maneuver pressure what never happened with the long stationery war through 2015 which led to the partial repair of the Constitution. There is more and more tension in the air, hard talks on early elections under the slogan “Enough!” This is all combined with the typical January concern of the population, the new road vignettes’ prices, causing discontent, the snow, the violence cases, the EC report… That is why the new rightist project of Democrats for Free Bulgaria’s leader Radan Kanev is exposed as the unification of citizens against mafia and not of rightist powers. As far as the socialists are concerned, they have been nothing, but criticism over the past month, summed up in the Bulgaria Dies final slogan. Here is more from Parvan Simeonov:

“Borissov is fine with the new oppositional role of the socialists and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms. Unlike Radan Kanev, they do not press his sensitive buttons – morality, investigations, the system of justice. The forthcoming motion of no confidence might even stabilize the majority, shaken a bit at the election of Meglena Kuneva for a new minister of education."

The MRF also says it is an opposition to GERB.

“Due to the current situation the movement deals with its own problems,” Parvan Simeonov says. “However, deep down no one can circumvent it and that became clear at the voting of Kuneva’s candidacy. In the visible spectrum they opposed her, but in fact the movement supported Kuneva. The MRF has many faces.”

The voices of the Patriotic Front and Volen Siderov from Ataka remain aside for the moment, as the public attention is focused on other things, the expert analysis concludes.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev