Brussels may have ousted Viktor Orbán from office in Hungary – Brussels bureaucrats may have successfully controlled the elections in Romania and Moldova – and yet they are confronting yet another challenge from one of the lesser EU countries: from Bulgaria.
Bulgaria is estimated to be one of the poorest EU countries. It accessed the Union in 2007, amid high hopes of a betterment of social and economic life. The social mood was engineered – just like in every country about to join the Union – through the mass media that managed to inculcate into the minds of the Bulgarians that there is no salvation beyond the European Union. The majority of Bulgarians – the gullible majority – believed and so the word became flesh: since 2007 Bulgaria is an EU member state.
Why do we call people voting in favour of joining the European Union gullible? Simply because people throughout the ages have always been lured into supporting now fascism, now communism, now the left, now the right only to later regret it bitterly. Biologically grown-up people – psychologically immature – always fall prey to promises. So did the people of Bulgaria. They had thought that once their country became an EU member, things could only be better. They woke up another day, and they found out that the cuckoo’s land was nowhere in sight while Bulgarian industry was done away with and a million of citizens had gradually disappeared – left for Western Europe. The same phenomenon that we have witnessed in the Baltic States. From the almost 8 (eight) million people in 2001 Bulgaria is now down to 6.5 (six point five)! (But never mind: the European Union will replenish those Bulgarians with Bangladeshis for the purpose of which Brussels has just [20 April, 2026] signed the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with Dhaka).
Even though Bulgarian economy did not fare well, the ruling class managed to make Bulgaria accept the euro, thus depriving the country of the remnants of its sovereignty. There were violent protests but to no avail. The ruling class was obliged (bribed?) to implement the European Union’s plan for their country and so they readily executed the plan.
Yet, just like once in Hungary and nowadays in Slovakia (Robert Fico), there emerged resistance to Brussels and the Bulgarian resistance had its name and face: Rumen Radev.
Rumen Radev is an interesting personality. Trained as a military pilot (he flew MiG 29), risen to the rank of a general towards his military career, a Christian Orthodox believer with leftist or socialist political and economic views, he successfully campaigned to be elected Bulgaria’s president, which office he held for almost ten years (2017-2026). Seeing his fatherland in economic and social distress, Rumen Radev became head of the Progressive Bulgaria (Прогресивна България) party, resigned from his presidential post and led his party to a landslide victory in the parliamentary election in April this year, winning 131 seats out of 240.
Rumen Radev is not the politician that Brussels would be glad of. Just like Robert Fico and Viktor Orbán (and most likely also Peter Magyar, Orbán’s successor) Rumen Radev is against the provision of support for Ukraine in the latter’s war with Russia; he wants to maintain pragmatic relations with Moscow, he is a vocal critic of the EU policies, especially its craze for green economy, and – to top it all – he was against the introduction of the euro.
As it is, the new members of the Union are increasingly anti-Union, be it Slovakia or Bulgaria, be it Hungary or Poland. Eastern Europeans are growing ever more disappointed with the Union. They are very often heard to say that the current Union is not the Union they wanted to be a part of. Well, it is good that Eastern Europeans are slowly opening their eyes to reality, but they should have known better years back when they were enticed and tempted to fling themselves into Brussels’ monstrous embrace. Life teaches us that all trouble routinely begins with the acceptance of the belief in sweet promises of a bright future. When will humanity eventually grow up to this realisation?
