If you look at the list of people Bulgaria has sent to Brussels as MEPs over the years, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the EU Parliament has been a safe haven for pariahs in national politics and recognizable faces with little political experience who somehow manage to attract protest votes.
In practice, an MEP seat weighs about four times more than a seat in the national parliament (in 2019, about 110,000 votes were needed to pass the 5.88% barrier to get an MEP into the European Parliament). It is not only harder to get into the European Parliament - it also pays more. There are no early elections there, the MEP seat can only be lost by a personal decision to leave or death, and deputies have a generous allowance for representation expenses, travel, assistants, social, including pension benefits The list goes on and on.
In contrast, people's expectations of them are far lower - firstly because it is difficult to hold someone to account whom you see once a year (as happens with most), and secondly because problems at continental level affect corporations and countries rather than individuals.
That makes the European Parliament a rather cushy place. And if the MEP in question has good contacts in their party's European family and follows their party leader's guidance well, they can get through several consecutive terms unbothered. This is what makes the position so esteemed.
How will Bulgaria's 17 seats in the European Parliament play out?
According to the analyses of the EU Matrix Brussels-based think-tank, the distribution of forces in the next European Parliament will look like this: 5 seats for GERB, 4 for WCC-DB, 3 for Vazrazhdane and MRF each and 2 for BSP. According to another, earlier forecast - of the European Council on Foreign Relations, Slavi Trifonov's TISP and the socialist splinter cell The Left - have a small chance for one MEP at the expense of the MRF and WCC-DB, but this seems rather unlikely according to more recent national polls.
There are not too many surprises in the lists from Bulgaria, but there are still a few notable developments. Two clear trends are visible: GERB and MRF are relying on familiar names who have been working in Brussels for a long time and are building momentum, while the other parties (especially BSP) are filling their lists with new names, or semi-forgotten old ones, which leads to an absence of continuity. The controversial trend of senior party leaders running for both national and European MPs in order to attract votes, but then dropping one of the seats they won, also makes predicting the final results harder.
GERB
The long-standing representatives of Boyko Borissov's party are again in electable seats - Andrey Kovachev, Andrey Novakov, Emil Radev and Eva Maydel, who are placed from second to fifth place respectively. Traditionally, the representative of the coalition partner from UDF - Iliya Lazarov, the party's secretary general, is placed in the sixth seat, while current two-term MEP Asim Ademov is seventh and only has a chance if the surprise leader of the MEP list, former speaker of the National Parliament Rosen Zhelyazkov prefers the Bulgarian parliament, where he also leads the GERB list from Blagoevgrad.
It is not yet clear whether Zhelyazkov would prefer to leave the dirty waters of Bulgarian politics to replace them with the calmer ones of the Brussels lake. The non-candidature of Mariya Gabriel, the would-be PM under the previous cabinet's rotational agreement, is conspicuous. The former commissioner and deputy prime minister is known for her career ambitions in Brussels and so her absence from the list is probably due to either her resentment at the failed rotation, as sources speculate, or because she is hoping to be nominated for another post.
Vazrazhdane
The leader of the list of the pro-Russian party is MP Stanislav Stoyanov. He was part of the team preparing the Bulgarian version of the current European legislation in Bulgaria's pre-accession process to the European Union. The second position belongs to the presenter on Bulgarian National Radio, Peter Volgin, whose nomination is from the party's Varna structure from the so-called public quota. Volgin has made a splash in recent years as the media's chief defender of Russia's action in the war and, as such, will have an open path to other radical parties in the EP - for example the German AfD.
"The people we will send to the European Parliament meet three conditions - they are patriots, they put the Bulgarian national interest first and foremost. They will be open and democratic. Thirdly, they are distinctly hard-working and effective in their work so far," said party head Kostadin Kostadinov. He also stressed that everyone on the list speaks a foreign language.
BSP
After scrapping almost its entire list of MEPs in 2019 because of party leader Kornelia Ninova's attempt to cleanse the party of old influences, BSP is once again nominating a brand new list of candidates, as Ninova managed to fall out with almost all of her party's current MEPs. Add to that the fact that the party will likely lose three of the five seats it controls.
The party is returning to Kristiyan Vigenin, whose career in Bulgaria began after a stint in the European Parliament, as the head of the list. The second is, surprisingly, the Videnov cabinet (1996-1997) Economy Minister and long-time MP Rumen Gechev. Both of them, however, are also leaders in the lists for the Bulgarian parliament. Only Tsvetelina Penkova of the current MEPs has any chance for a new mandate and takes third place in the list.
MRF
The party of Ahmed Dogan and Delyan Peevski, as always, does not make sudden moves in the European Parliament, where it has secured a strong foothold in the liberal circles. This time, the co-chairman, Dzhevdet Chakurov, is heading the list, while the second and third positions are occupied by MEPs Ilhan Kyuchyuk and Iskra Mihaylova. Assuming that Chakarov will not go to Brussels, Mihaylova, who is gaining capacity both as an MEP and as a specialist in regional politics and economics, will continue to be a strong voice in the corridors in Brussels.
The surprise here is the fifth position held by current BSP MEP Elena Yoncheva. Yoncheva herself explained this as a recognition of what she has achieved for Bulgaria in Brussels, while MRF co-chair Delyan Peevski commented that Yoncheva is "an independent person who has proven that she defends the freedom of the media, of journalists, of people. We have always had a civic quota and I think she is a worthy representative."
WCC-DB
The reformists have decided to push forward young faces from WCC instead of the Democratic Bulgaria candidates, who are expected to climb the final ranking because there is a higher likelihood that they will attract preferential votes. The list is headed by former Parliament Speaker Nikola Minchev (WCC). He is followed by Stefan Tafrov from Yes Bulgaria (part of DB), while Daniel Lorer and Denitsa Simeonova from WCC are placed third and fourth, respectively. The current MEP from another DB member, DSB's Radan Kanev is only fifth, followed by Hristo "the Gamble" Petrov from WCC, both of whom are likely to attract preferential votes, which might lead to rearrangement in the final list of MEPs.
If you look at the list of people Bulgaria has sent to Brussels as MEPs over the years, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the EU Parliament has been a safe haven for pariahs in national politics and recognizable faces with little political experience who somehow manage to attract protest votes.
In practice, an MEP seat weighs about four times more than a seat in the national parliament (in 2019, about 110,000 votes were needed to pass the 5.88% barrier to get an MEP into the European Parliament). It is not only harder to get into the European Parliament - it also pays more. There are no early elections there, the MEP seat can only be lost by a personal decision to leave or death, and deputies have a generous allowance for representation expenses, travel, assistants, social, including pension benefits The list goes on and on.