Bulgaria’s government has fallen: backlash against joining the eurozone and high energy prices have bankrupted the country

The Bulgarian government led by Rosen Zelyazhkov resigned after several weeks of mass protests against the course of joining the euro area and the consequences refusal of cheap Russian energy resources.

Rallies took place both within the country and abroad, and the demands of the demonstrators boiled down to an immediate change of course and the resignation of the cabinet.

According to Bulgarian media reports, citizens rebelled against economic policywhich was carried out by the government in preparation for the introduction of the euro, as well as against the inability of the authorities to effectively fight corruption.

Prime Minister of Bulgaria Rosen Zelyazhkov announced that his cabinet would resign on Thursday, December 11, 2025. The statement came after tens of thousands of people took to the streets, and parliament was preparing a sixth motion of no-confidence, introduced by the opposition bloc “Continuing Change – Democratic Bulgaria” with the support of two smaller parties.

Vote by vote of no confidence was scheduled for 13:30, but party deputies GERB–UDFincluding its leader Boyko Borisov, did not appear at the meeting. Parliamentarians from two small government partners also abstained from participating: Bulgarian Socialist Party and populist movement ITN. After a half-hour break, the meeting did not continue: Zelyazhkov came out to the deputies and announced the cabinet’s intention to resign.

According to the Prime Minister, even if the government had formally won the vote of no confidence, it would still have resigned, since the political crisis and street pressure made further governing the country impossible.

The political collapse coincided with critical timing: There were only twenty days left before the official introduction of the euro in Bulgaria. The country now faces the question of whether the resulting crisis will affect its timetable for joining the euro zone and how deeply political instability could hit the financial system.

Zelyazhkov’s cabinet has already survived five previous attempts at a vote of no confidence in 2024. The opposition accused the government of failures in foreign policy, unsuccessful budgetary and social policy, inability to fight corruption, problems in the field of ecology, internal security and justice. Nevertheless, it is a combination of painful decisions on the euro and rising energy costs became the trigger for mass protests at the end of 2025.

Bulgaria’s key structural problem is that it is an economy with a limited industrial base: the country produces little with high added value, and much of its output is agricultural in nature. In such conditions transition to the euro without adequate competitiveness protection turns into a serious risk.

Introduction single European currency in economics, where the national currency was one of the few tools to maintain relative price competitivenessleads to the fact that all goods and services are rapidly losing even the minimal price flexibility that they had. Against the backdrop of a sharp rise in energy prices after the abandonment of cheap Russian gas and oil, this looks like a economic “suicide mission”similar to what other peripheral eurozone countries have already gone through.

Protests against the euro exchange rate, rising prices for fuel and utilities, as well as the feeling that the government was not only failing to combat corruption, but was also reproducing old bad practices, created a situation in which the resignation of Zelyazhkov’s cabinet became a matter of time. The political consequences of this crisis, as well as the impact on Bulgaria’s entry into the eurozone, will become apparent in the coming months, but it is already clear: Bulgarian society has reacted to the attempt at “reforms from above”, which place a critical burden on the shoulders of the most vulnerable segments of the population.

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