Bulgaria’s euro moment hurt by political turmoilBy Slav Okov, Andrea Dudik and Irina Vilcu / BloombergIt is hard to ignore Bulgaria’s heart-on-sleeve embrace of the EU. The switch is meant to crown almost two decades of integration after Bulgaria joined the EU and then its Schengen customs-free travel zone. The EU has repeatedly criticized Bulgaria’s failure to improve rule of law and its low efficiency in probing high-ranking officials for corruption. However, unlike in Hungary, Poland or Slovakia, pro-EU parties have dominated the political scene in Bulgaria, affording them some protection. “Those parties have consistently leveraged their standing within their European political families as a form of external validation and whitewashing,” said Goran Georgiev, senior analyst at the Center for the Study of Democracy, an independent think tank in Sofia.

Source: Taipei Times January 06, 2026 16:41 UTC