On the day of the EU referendum in the United Kingdom a poll held locally claimed to have found that according to 88% of Bulgarians the UK leaving the Bloc does not concern them in the least. According to 67% of respondents the referendum would not influence their lives, and 11% have reportedly said they cannot judge for now. Sociologists explained these results with little knowledge on the topic but predicted that interest in what is going on in Britain would grow steadily.

And indeed, Bulgarian politicians demonstrated enhanced activity in reacting to the first results from the historic referendum. President Rosen Plevneliev voiced regret that a great power, a symbol of free trade and liberal democracy has decided to self-isolate within its national borders. The Bulgarian head of state also voiced concerns over that nationalists and populists were celebrating in the streets but also voiced confidence that United Europe – with or without UK – would be looking ahead.

PM Boyko Borissov whose cabinet had taken a preliminary stance that a Remain outcome for UK would benefit all, commented that he respected the choice of the Brits. According to Borissov, UK’s exit will influence Bulgaria anyway, because the EU would end up weaker. According to politicians from the ruling party Gerb the decision of British voters to leave EU will serve as a poor example for the rest of member countries. Politicians from the Reformist Bloc in turn said the biggest risk was a wave of EU referenda across the bloc. The premier though declined to comment this hypothesis remarking that in the case of a domino effect, it could be that the EU ends up with three countries – Romania, Bulgaria and Greece.

Though it said that the actual withdrawal of Great Britain from the European Union was a long process, the Bulgarian Socialist Party urged the Bulgarian government to start work immediately on protecting the interests of 250,000 Bulgarian nationals who study, live and work in the United Kingdom. According to the Socialists the decision of the Brits should make EU and Europe abandon bureaucracy and formalism and switch to a hands-on approach in solving the problems of European citizens.

The nationalists from VMRO contend that the withdrawal from the bloc of Britain being the EU’s third biggest economy, would deal a blow to the economies of all other member countries. VMRO believes that the EU should be reduced to an economic union that respects nation-states, because otherwise, others are set to leave it too. The National Front for Salvation of Bulgaria however does not detect any symptoms of EU disintegration. The party interprets the results in the referendum as an upsurge of the priorities of national ideas of patriotism, but notes that there is not much drama in a country leaving the EU because it is possible to keep relations of free movement of people and goods between such a country and the community.

Among expert circles some define the Brexit as a signal for the need of reform and a restart of EU, others see it as a prerequisite for a new ratio of forces in the European institutions, and still others as an urge to change the direction of EU’s development, notably a turn from the route of full integration and an expansion of the Union towards reclaiming national sovereignty by countries.

The first reactions to the Brexit in Bulgaria no matter how incomplete confirm the conclusion that unlike in other countries of the European Union, in Bulgaria there is no important political party which fully identifies with Euroscepticism.

English Daniela Konstantinova