Rumen Radev’s Progressive Bulgaria party has won Bulgaria’s eighth general election in five years, securing an absolute parliamentary majority and breaking a long cycle of instability. Radev ran on fighting the “oligarchic governance model” and has cast the result as a rejection of the old order associated with centre-right former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov and oligarch Delyan Peevski, both targets of mass protests last December over corruption and their behind-the-scenes influence.
It also raises a harder question for Brussels: whether Bulgaria is now set to follow Slovakia in pulling the EU closer to Moscow.
The concern is understandable. The win takes place just a week after Orbán’s defeat in Hungary’s election. Moreover, Radev has long taken sympathetic positions on Russia. He opposed military aid to Kyiv, criticised the Bulgaria–Ukraine security agreement signed last month and has argued for “practical relations with Russia”. In 2021, he also sparked outrage by calling Crimea “Russian”. His victory will therefore deepen concerns that Sofia may become an unreliable partner on one of the EU’s most sensitive files. The Kremlin has already welcomed Radev’s call for dialogue.
But Radev is no Orbán. Bulgaria’s institutions are weaker than Hungary’s and the country is far more dependent on EU funds. Radev himself has signaled that Bulgaria would continue on its “European path” even as he called for “pragmatism” from the bloc towards Russia.
That doesn’t mean there is no risk; rather that Radev is more likely to pursue selective divergence than open confrontation with Brussels across a wide front. Ukraine is the most obvious area. He will likely try to dilute Sofia’s support for Kyiv – for which Bulgaria is a key supplier of ammunition. Radev has said he will not use his country’s veto to block EU aid to Kyiv, but he may nonetheless amplify calls for accommodation with Moscow. The result would not be an outright break with the EU nor an Orbánist use of veto power for leverage, but a reversal of the current caretaker government’s more clearly pro-Western positioning.
This is where Brussels still has leverage. The most obvious tool is conditionality – especially where EU funding, governance standards and judicial reform are concerned. Bulgaria remains deeply reliant on European funds. Its politics are also more fragmented and cyclical, shaped by repeated elections, fragile governing coalitions and unresolved anti-corruption tensions. Radev will know that direct confrontation with the EU would come at a high cost. But those tools work best when they reinforce domestic reform incentives rather than substitute for them.
The second tool is political. If EU actors isolate Sofia completely, they may reinforce Radev’s ability to present himself as simply defending Bulgarian interests while Brussels remains captive of its own ambitions to be “a moral leader in a world with new rules”. But if they engage pragmatically while raising the cost of obstruction on Ukraine, they may narrow his room for manoeuvre.
A third lever is domestic: EU backing for judicial reform and anti-corruption efforts could strengthen the parts of Bulgarian politics that Radev claims to represent but may struggle to deliver. In practice, that makes support for domestic institutional resilience and rule-of-law enforcement just as important as high-level diplomatic pressure.
Neighbouring countries also have a stake. Romania and Greece, both NATO and EU members with strong interests in Black Sea security and regional energy stability, will want Bulgaria anchored firmly in Euro-Atlantic structures. North Macedonia has reason to worry too, though not because Radev would open a wholly new front. Bulgaria has blocked Skopje’s EU accession path since 2020, so the real risk is continuity rather than escalation. That still matters, because it would keep enlargement vulnerable to bilateral politics at a moment when the EU says it wants to move faster.
So Radev’s victory does not herald a new Orbán in Sofia. The more plausible scenario is a Bulgarian government that remains formally committed to the EU while pushing for renewed ties with Russia, hardening positions on enlargement and eroding support for Ukraine.
For Brussels, the challenge is to contain the drift early.
This Op-Ed was first published by Euractiv.
Jessica Moss is Editor at the European Policy Centre.
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