June 6 (SeeNews) - The Bulgarian parliament on Tuesday elected a rotation government agreed upon in a power sharing deal between WCC-DB and GERB-UDF, the top two political formations after the April 2 snap vote.
The government which will be led by prime minister Nikolay Denkov of WCC-DB for nine months, was approved in a 131-69 vote in the 240-seat National Assembly with no abstentions, as seen in a live TV broadcast from parliament.
Former Bulgarian EU commissioner Mariya Gabriel nominated by GERB-UDF will serve as sole deputy prime minister and foreign affairs minister in the cabinet, before taking over the post of prime minister from Denkov for the next nine months, according to the power-sharing agreement.
GERB, led by former prime minister Boyko Borissov, and WCC, led by Kiril Petkov who was prime minister until last June, have been arch opponents over the past two years. In the April general election, the fifth in two years, WCC ran in coalition with anti-status quo party Democratic Bulgaria (DB), coming a close second with 24.7% of the vote compared to 26.7% for election winner, a coalition of centre-right GERB and UDF. GERB-UDF has 69 MPs, while WCC-DB has 63.
“The new government's top priority will be to focus on urgently adopting a budget for 2023 with a budget deficit of no more than 3%, without tax increases and keeping existing social payments, and preparing the budget for next year,” Denkov told parliament before the vote. He added that the cabinet will work on speeding up the proces of Bulgaria's accession to the Schengen free-travel area and ensuring its eurozone entry on January 1, 2025. Fighting inflation, continuing measures to ensure that there is no monopoly on energy deliveries to Bulgaria, constitutional and judicial reforms will also take priority in the work of the new cabinet, Denkov said.
The appointment of a much-awaited elected government is expected to ease the long-standing political turmoil in Bulgaria and enable the adoption of crucial legislation that will unlock the second and subsequent tranches under Bulgaria’s EU-approved Recovery and Resilience Plan.
Among the 18 ministers in the cabinet, Bogdan Bogdanov, the executive director of Invest Bulgaria government agency, will take over the ministry of economy and growth.
The finance minister and minister in charge of European funds will be Assen Vassilev, co-leader of WCC and former finance minister in Petkov’s coalition government which lost power in a vote of no confidence last year.
Todor Tagarev, who has taken part in working groups of NATO and the European Defence Agency, will serve as minister of defence. Rumen Radev, deputy chairman of the Association of Industrial Capital in Bulgaria, will be energy minister.
On Monday, Denkov proposed to Bulgarian president Rumen Radev the line-up of the rotation government that he formed with the mandate of WCC-DB after GERB-UDF and WCC-DB reached a final agreement on its composition.
Bulgaria has been ruled by a caretaker cabinet appointed by the president since last August, operating on extended provisions of the revised 2022 budget.