SOFIA, Bulgaria — Defiant Bulgaria protests that have drawn tens of thousands of people into streets across the country for a second straight week are setting up a crucial showdown for Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov’s minority government as parliament prepares for a sixth no-confidence vote. Protesters and opposition leaders say Thursday’s ballot will test whether lawmakers side with citizens outraged over corruption and a withdrawn 2026 budget drafted in euros or with a cabinet they accuse of clinging to power just weeks before the country adopts the single currency, Dec. 11, 2025.
The latest wave of Bulgaria protests surged after the government’s first euro-era budget proposed higher social security contributions and a sharp increase in dividend taxes, sparking anger that ordinary people were being asked to pay more while perceived graft and oligarchic influence went untouched. According to an Associated Press account and local media, more than 100,000 people packed central Sofia and rallied in dozens of other towns Wednesday night, chanting “Resignation” and “Mafia out” as they demanded Zhelyazkov step down.
In a separate Reuters report, demonstrators were seen projecting those slogans in laser light across the parliament façade while opposition alliance We Continue the Change–Democratic Bulgaria vowed to keep up nightly marches until the vote. President Rumen Radev has backed the crowds, calling the demonstrations a “public vote of no confidence” and urging MPs to choose between “the dignity of free voting and the shame of dependence” when they enter the chamber.
Deep roots for today’s Bulgaria protests
The Bulgaria protests erupting ahead of euro adoption are the latest chapter in a long cycle of street uprisings that have repeatedly reshaped national politics. In 2013, mass demonstrations over soaring electricity prices and corruption forced then–Prime Minister Boyko Borissov to resign after what analysts described as the biggest outburst of public anger since the 1990s.
That pattern returned during the 2020–2021 anti-corruption movement, when months of rallies against Borissov and Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev mobilized hundreds of thousands of people and ushered in a period of chronic coalition instability. The current unrest echoes many of the grievances detailed in the 2020–2021 Bulgaria protests, including anger at alleged “state capture” by business interests and frustration with what critics see as a politicized judiciary.
Today’s demonstrators also highlight the role of Delyan Peevski, a media mogul and lawmaker whose Movement for Rights and Freedoms – New Beginning backs the government in parliament and who has been sanctioned by the United States and United Kingdom over alleged corruption, charges he denies. For many on the streets, the latest Bulgaria protests are less about party labels than about whether the country can finally move beyond years of revolving-door governments and entrenched patronage networks.
Euro entry on Jan. 1 raises the stakes
Bulgaria is scheduled to adopt the euro on Jan. 1, 2026, becoming the 21st member of the euro area after EU institutions approved its accession this summer. A formal European Central Bank decision fixed the conversion rate at 1.95583 leva per euro, cementing a peg that has already tied the currency closely to the single currency for years.
Government leaders argue the cabinet has “no right to abdicate” in the final weeks before the switch, warning that entering 2026 without an approved budget could unsettle markets and complicate the rollout of euro banknotes and coins. Critics counter that the legal framework for euro entry is already locked in at the EU level and, as opposition figure Assen Vassilev told Reuters, Bulgaria will join the eurozone even if the Zhelyazkov government collapses before New Year’s Day.
No-confidence vote will show whether street energy translates into power
Thursday’s no-confidence motion, tabled by We Continue the Change–Democratic Bulgaria and backed by several smaller parties, accuses the government of failing in its economic policy and mishandling the euro-era budget. It will be the sixth such vote since the Zhelyazkov cabinet took office in January, underscoring a fragmented 51st National Assembly that has already overseen seven elections in four years and now faces its most serious test yet amid swelling Bulgaria protests.
The ruling coalition of GERB–SDS, the Socialist BSP–United Left and populist There Is Such a People remains a minority and relies on outside support from Peevski’s DPS–New Beginning to pass legislation, leaving little margin for defections in the no-confidence vote. A narrow government victory could deepen public anger and make further Bulgaria protests likely through the holiday season, while a defeat would plunge the country back into caretaker rule and fresh elections just as euro banknotes arrive. Either outcome will test whether Bulgaria’s leaders can restore public trust at the very moment the country takes its biggest economic step in a generation.
