Entangled Trajectories: The 2024 Electoral Year in Bulgaria and Romania

In physics, it is well established that when photons strike a smooth mirror surface, they reflect at the same angle, producing an image that is reversed yet structurally identical to the original. A comparable, though more complex, mirroring dynamic can be observed in the 2024 electoral landscapes of Bulgaria and Romania, two states that joined the European Union (EU) in 2007 after prolonged and hesitant transitions from authoritarian rule (Baun 2000; Dimitrova 2020; Mungiu-Pippidi 2015). Their accession was marked by delayed integration and the imposition of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism (CVM), aimed at promoting judicial reform, combating corruption, and addressing organized crime. While the final CVM reports, Bulgaria's in 2019 and Romania's in 2022, formally concluded this chapter of conditionality-based engagement, the mechanism's legacy remains contested (Dimitrov and Plachkova 2020). In this context, in both countries, the 2024 electoral configurations display reversed yet structurally analogous features. On the eve of the 2024 elections, Romania maintained a relatively institutionalized party system, albeit with the growing influence of far-right actors such as the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), alongside a constellation of smaller yet vocal parties and leaders who mobilized platforms centred on the rejection of mainstream politics, the idealization of the (ethnic) people, and the denunciation of a broad spectrum of perceived cultural, economic, and political threats. Bulgaria, by contrast, had long experienced pronounced party fragmentation and recurring institutional deadlock, often failing to form stable governments. On this ground, Bulgaria was widely anticipated to continue along a path of political volatility, with persistent party fragmentation and further electoral cycles. The June 2024 general elections – the fourth since the 2007 enlargement - largely confirmed these expectations: Bulgaria once again failed to produce a viable governing majority, prompting the scheduling of yet another snap election in October that eventually led to complex negotiations and a government coalition in which the majority party remains Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB). In contrast, Romania's 2024 presidential and parliamentary elections were initially expected to reaffirm the dominance of the traditional alliance between the Social Democratic Party (PSD) and the National Liberal Party (PNL), leaving little space for outsider candidates or emerging political movements. However, the surprise victory of Călin Georgescu, an independent candidate advocating nationalist, anti-EU, and pro-Moscow positions, in the first round of the presidential elections shattered Romania's image as a stable political arena and a reliable pro-European member state. The situation escalated when the Romanian Constitutional Court (CCR) annulled the first-round results, citing declassified intelligence that revealed a Russian disinformation campaign actively boosted Georgescu's candidacy online. Overnight, Romania shifted from a quiet, compliant EU member to a focal point of European and transatlantic concern. The December 2024 legislative elections further unsettled the political landscape, bringing two new far-right parties into parliament and reducing the combined PSD–PNL vote share to a post-communist low of 43.0% in the Chamber of Deputies. Ultimately, the electoral outcomes in both Romania and Bulgaria reveal striking parallels: intensifying anti-establishment sentiment, eroding public trust in traditional parties, and growing appeal of non-traditional, often sui generis, political actors. These two countries thus illustrate divergent paths converging on a shared crisis of democratic representation, highlighting broader uncertainties along the EU's eastern frontier. In both cases, commitment to the European project has grown increasingly ambivalent. Public scepticism toward continued support for Ukraine is rising, while traditionalist platforms, often combining pro-Russian rhetoric, appeals to conservative values, populist discourse reminiscent of "Make America Great Again," and occasionally irredentist claims, are reshaping domestic political debates. Bulgaria and Romania reflect each other's democratic challenges in different ways but converge toward a common trajectory of democratic instability. The remainder of the article is structured as follows. First, we provide an overview of the socio-political context in which the 2024 elections were organized. Next, we examine the main themes of the electoral campaigns, with particular attention to EU-related issues. We then present the electoral outcomes. The final section offers concluding reflections on the broader implications of these developments for EU politics. In both Romania and Bulgaria, as across much of the EU, the 2024 Spring Eurobarometer (EP Spring Survey 2024) revealed that citizens' primary concerns centred on rising prices and the cost of living. Economic pessimism was widespread, with many anticipating further deterioration in national economies. Alongside inflation and public debt, social issues such as poverty, inequality, and the affordability of energy featured prominently. National surveys identified corruption as persistent concern, and a growing share of the population expressed anxiety over the geopolitical instability in the region. These sentiments are coherent with a higher level of political apathy illustrated by consistently low electoral participation. In Bulgaria, voter turnout has been on the decline since 2009, hovering around 50%, but since 2021 it slipped even further with about 40% of eligible voters turning out in the 2023 legislative elections. Similarly, Romania's 2020 parliamentary elections saw the lowest turnout in its post-communist history, with only 32.0% participation. This backdrop of political disengagement and economic anxiety might look paradoxical given both countries' substantial economic progress since joining the EU. Bulgaria has maintained steady GDP growth and relatively low public debt through disciplined fiscal policy. Romania has posted some of the highest growth rates in the EU since 2010 (EP Spring Survey 2024). Yet, these macroeconomic achievements obscure persistent structural deficiencies. GDP per capita remains well below the EU average in both countries. Despite robust growth, poverty and income inequality endure at some of the highest levels in the Union (Word Inequality Database 2023). This pattern of economic growth without inclusive development is deeply rooted in both Romania's and Bulgaria's longstanding adherence to neoliberal economic orthodoxy, a trajectory established during the preparatory phase for EU accession and maintained consistently after their accession in 2007 (Vachudova and Hooghe 2009). Successive Romanian and Bulgarian governments, regardless of political orientation, have upheld policy frameworks centred on flat taxation, privatization, labour market liberalization, and underinvestment in public services. These policies have prevalently benefited urban economic elites while exacerbating regional disparities and weakening social cohesion. In Romania, the limits of this model have become increasingly apparent: growth driven by consumption and rising public sector wages has generated fiscal strain, worsened by weak tax collection and a limited capacity for redistribution. Bulgaria, by contrast, has earned EU commendation for its fiscal prudence. In 2024, the European Commission endorsed Bulgaria's readiness to adopt the euro by January 2026, citing its compliance with key convergence criteria. Governance deficits continue to erode the legitimacy of democratic institutions in both Romania and Bulgaria. Although EU-driven reforms have spurred modest progress in areas such as judicial independence and anti-corruption efforts, public perception remains deeply sceptical. Both countries consistently rank among the EU's worst performers on corruption indices (Corruption Perception Index 2024), reflecting persistent concerns over elite impunity, clientelism, and institutional opacity. These enduring governance failures have not only undermined trust in formal political institutions but have also created fertile ground for populist and anti-system actors. Despite this institutional disillusionment, support for Euro-Atlantic integration remains broadly intact. EU and NATO membership continue to enjoy majority approval, though increasingly mediated by ambivalence and conditionality (Mărgărit 2020; Stoyanov and Kostadinova 2021). In particular, socio-cultural divisions have become more salient in shaping public discourse and political polarization. In Bulgaria, anxieties around Islam and perceived Turkish influence have gained traction among nationalist constituencies, while more broadly, the EU's cosmopolitan values are increasingly portrayed as threatening to national traditions and social cohesion. The derogatory concept of Gayropa (Stoyanov and Kostadinova 2021) encapsulates the backlash against liberal European norms, while in Romania, the large-scale mobilization of the Coalition for the Family (Mărgărit 2020) illustrates a similar dynamic of conservative resistance. These socio-cultural cleavages have intensified and morphed in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, adding an economic dimension to identity-based contestation. Inflation surged in both countries, driven largely by energy and food prices, exacerbating existing material insecurities. Political mobilization around these grievances has intensified, as illustrated by the mass protests of Romanian and Bulgarian farmers against the EU's compensation package addressing market disruptions caused by Ukrainian agricultural imports (Bellamy 2023). Agricultural policy has become particularly contentious, frequently framed as a case of external imposition by Brussels. While both Romania and Bulgaria remain formally aligned with the Euro-Atlantic framework, segments of their populations remain receptive to pro-Russian narratives and sceptical of EU decision-making. In Bulgaria, opposition to core EU policies, including the Green Deal, migration, and Ukraine, has grown significantly, especially among rural and socially conservative voters and some political actors.1 Similar patterns are evident in Romania, where support for Ukraine has gradually waned, eroded by disinformation campaigns and nationalist discourse emphasizing the difficulties of ethnic Romanians in Ukrainian territory. The erosion of democratic quality is particularly visible in electoral politics. In Romania, a long-standing pro-European consensus among mainstream parties has masked deeper discontent. As the 2024 elections approached, the Romanian system appeared procedurally functional yet substantively hollowed out. Elections are widely viewed as low-stakes affairs, institutional accountability is diluted by party fragmentation, and formal political representation remains disconnected from societal grievances. Bulgaria exhibits a parallel trajectory, albeit with greater political instability and entrepreneurialism. A somewhat stable party system existed until 2001, but since then fragmentation has been constant. No party has gained majority of seats since 2005, and since 2009, there has not been a full-term government in power. Since 2013 there have been seven caretaker cabinets, with the majority clustered in the post-2021 period. A renewed pool of political elites and challenger parties, coupled with frequent electoral cycles, have further destabilized governance and compounded public disengagement. The instability in both countries cannot be reduced only to leadership choices or short-term electoral tactics. Instead, it must be situated within the broader landscape of post-communist structural crises: entrenched socio-economic inequalities, fragile state institutions, and prolonged disillusionment with the promises of liberal democracy. The resulting political vacuum has been increasingly occupied by nationalist rhetoric, identity politics, and anti-establishment appeals. In this light, a comparative approach to Romania and Bulgaria is not only warranted by their geographic proximity but also by their shared transitional trajectories. Both countries emerged from communism with institutional legacies of elite continuity and ambiguous reform. While EU conditionality accelerated formal alignment with Western norms, it did not resolve underlying legitimacy deficits. Over time, the accumulation of grievances, corruption, inequality, peripheral status within the EU, has fuelled frustration with what many perceive as a second-tier membership. This sentiment has been reinforced by the prolonged delay in Schengen accession, only partially resolved in March 2024, and by perceived double standards in the treatment of Eastern European states. Against this backdrop, illiberal movements have gained traction by rejecting the perceived incongruity between EU norms and national identity. The war in Ukraine has further accentuated these tensions, compelling both governments to strike a precarious balance between external commitments and mounting domestic discontent. The intersection of structural fragility, cultural contestation, and geopolitical pressure was clearly visible in the elections in both countries in 2024. By 2024 Bulgaria was tired of elections. In the 35 years since democratization, the country has seen 18 rounds of elections with new parties entering Parliament at almost every single one of them. The electoral PR system is a relatively permissive system for new entrants despite the 4% electoral threshold. The liberal system of public financing of parties since 2005 has made a clear difference for the emergence and persistence of various small parties (Casal Bértoa and Spirova 2019). Paralleled with unstable party loyalties and ambitious politicians, these have generated a constant re-shuffling in the party system, leading to high electoral volatility. The first decade of party politics in Bulgaria was dominated by the communist–anti-communist divide, with the Bulgarian Socialists (BSP), successor to the communists, remaining relatively unreformed. At the same time, the nascent anti-communist opposition (Union of Democratic Forces, SDS) experienced chronic factionalism. Although the two big competitors dominated Bulgarian politics during the 1990s, a number of smaller political parties were constantly present in the system, the most important of these being the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) an ethnic party representing the relatively well mobilized Turkish minority (Karasimeonov 2002; Spirova 2007: 74). The second decade of party politics began with the emergence of the National Movement Simeon the Second (NDSV), built around the personality of the Bulgarian ex-monarch, Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The NDSV swept the 2001 elections and, in alliance with the DPS, took over the government of the country. The NDSV remained in government as a junior coalition partner in 2005–2009 but has since completely disappeared from the political landscape. In 2009, GERB emerged as the dominant political player. GERB self-identified as a Christian Democratic party, focusing on traditional values. GERB's entry into politics was comparable to that of the NDSV in 2001: it had no experience in national politics, it was supported by anti-status-quo voters, and it was led by a charismatic leader, Boyko Borissov. The third decade of party politics thus remained focused on GERB's dominance of politics and its opponents. The party remained in control of the executive until 2021 with a short interruption during 2013–2014 and its leader (and Bulgarian prime minister) Borissov remained quite popular throughout the period (Spirova and Sharenkova-Toshkova 2021). Challengers came and went at every election but no viable political alternatives to GERB emerged. On the right, several extreme right and nationalist formations appeared, and during the Borissov III tenure (2017–2021) nationalist parties (United Patriots) were included in the governing coalition of the country. On the left, several splinters from the BSP joined the political competition but none left a lasting impact. While discontent with GERB's role in politics seemed to encourage mostly political apathy, as evidenced by the sharp decline in voter turnout,2 by the end of the 2010's enough public discontent with the state capture by the party had built up for a stronger challenge to the system. While 2020 was defined globally by the COVID−19 pandemic, in Bulgaria it also marked the most sustained wave of anti-government protests in over a decade and the beginning of a period of even higher party system and cabinet instability. The demonstrations, which paralyzed Sofia and several major cities during the summer, were directed against Prime Minister Borissov and the entrenched power structures surrounding GERB and its informal ally, DPS (Spirova 2022). The year 2021 saw three parliamentary elections held within a single calendar year, a clear reflection of the troubles the country was in. The inability to form a functioning majority after the April and July contests was rooted in the mutual political isolation of key actors: GERB, increasingly marginalized due to accusations of state capture, and BSP and DPS, whose participation in governance remained politically unacceptable for most emerging parties. In July, There Is Such a People (ITN) - a newly formed populist party centred around the media persona of Slavi Trifonov - secured a narrow plurality but lacked both the programmatic coherence and the willingness to engage in coalition-building. Its refusal to assume the responsibilities of governance led to a failed attempt to install a minority cabinet, further deepening the institutional deadlock. Only after the third, November 2021, elections, did a governing formula emerge, producing a precarious 4-party coalition composed of the presidentially endorsed We Continue the Change (PP), ITN, BSP, and fragments of the traditional center-right (SDS). This coalition was the great hope for the political system, as it reflected anti-corruption and Euro-Atlantic commitments, but it was structurally unstable from the outset. Conflicts generated by the members' competing political agendas were exacerbated by the onset of the Russia–Ukraine war and internal fragmentation appeared quickly. By mid-2022, the coalition had collapsed. New elections followed in late 2022, but again failed to produce a political accountable cabinet, allowing the caretaker cabinets of President Radev to continue to govern the country. Following another round of early elections in early 2023, a cabinet was agreed upon but brought its own problems. Seen as a political creation artificially cobbled together (sglobka) under the influence of various Western actors, the Cabinet made of GERB and PP struggled with increasing opposition and declining public image. When the coalition collapsed in early 2024, the Bulgarian electorate had little to keep it motivated. Yet, as time demonstrated, it still had to go to the polls twice in order to see a new, politically accountable cabinet, come to power in early 2025. These two rounds of elections once again exposed the persistent challenges in Bulgarian politics: deep polarization, reflected in the growing presence of nationalist parties in Parliament, and a broader societal tension around the defense of traditional cultural, moral, and religious values. This dynamic manifests in ambivalent attitudes toward Russia, LGBTQ+ rights, and migration, issues often framed as part of a struggle to preserve cultural distinctiveness against values perceived as externally imposed, particularly from the EU. In Bulgaria's case, Russia plays a unique role in this narrative due to historical ties dating back to the country's independence, with recent years seeing a revival of pro-Russian sentiment positioned as a counterpoint to Western liberal norms. At the same time Bulgaria made progress toward its EU integration: it became a member of the Schengen Area for air and sea travel on 31 March 2024, and on land as of March 2025. It also advanced towards the goal of joining the Eurozone, although strong divisions on this issue are fuelled by nationalist and pro-Russian political actors. The first elections of 2024 (seventh since 2021), were held on June 9, combining elections to the EP with the early elections for national parliament. In terms of turnout, this allowed the EP elections to benefit from the national elections: at 33,8% it maintained similar levels to the last 2019 EP elections (32,6%). Bulgaria sent six MEPs to the European People's Party, three to the liberal Renew Europe, three to the Europe of sovereign nations group, two to Socialists & Democrats, one to the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group and, lastly, two non-affiliated MEPs. Naturally, however, the competition for the EP seats was dominated by the issues of the national elections. The Central Election Commission (CEC) required parties to submit at least 2,500 valid voter signatures to register but could use a single list for both elections. 32 parties registered and competed in the national elections for the votes of 34.4% (2268849) of the Bulgarian electorate, the lowest ever turnout in national elections. In June 2024, seven parties crossed the electoral threshold to enter the 50th National Assembly, of which six had been in the previous parliament (see Table 1). GERB-SDS maintained its plurality position in the national assembly, the DPS emerged second, leaving PP-DB in the third place. PP-DP lost about half of the votes it had held in 2023, clearly suffering from its participation in the sglobka cabinet, in stark contrast to GERB which seemed to not suffer much. Nationalist and pro-Russian Vazrazhdane, the BSP and ITN generally maintained their positions from the previous legislature. The big surprise of the elections was the entry of Velichie (Greatness) in Parliament, with 4.7% of the votes, after pre-electoral polls failed to predict it passing the 4% electoral threshold. Velichie was formed around the personality of Ivelin Mihaylov, a businessman from the Varna region, who had developed a historical patriotic amusement park in the village of Neofit Rilski, near Varna. The party campaigned on patriotism, EU scepticism, and populism. Cabinet negotiations promised to be difficult and delivered on this promise, with neither GERB-SDS not any other of the leading party factions able to secure the political support for its proposed cabinets. New early elections were scheduled for October 27, 2024. In many ways, the October elections did not differ much from the June ones: 29 parties competed at the elections in October and nine entered the Parliament (see Table 2). Turnout was 38,9%, slightly up from June. Just as in June, no major disruptions occurred, and the Central Electoral Commission only reported some technical issues with voting machines in a small number of polling stations. The outcome of the two 2024 elections in Bulgaria, however, provided 3 major takeaways. The first one is the repeated plurality position of GERB in the political system. Despite various allegations and open discussions of the clientelist networks that the party builds, or maybe even exactly because of them, the party continues to maintain a decisive grip on Bulgarian society and continues to deliver the vote. Its pro-EU, pro-NATO, populist and patriotic, but not nationalist positions, its persistent anti-Russian stance, and its proclivity to engage in state institutional capture and "soft decisionism" but not in open democratic backsliding, makes it a reliable partner for Brussels. It remains the one stable pole in the constant replay of electoral games in the country, solidifying its position of the "known" quantity. This makes the dismantling or even disruption of its corrupt clientelist networks in the country quite unlikely. A second important development in the same direction is one of the reasons for the further fragmentation of Parliament: the major split in the party traditionally representing the Turkish minority DPS. Details of the split are nothing new, at least not at the surface: following a major leadership fall-out in the summer of 2024, two entities competed in October 2024: DPS-NN, led by the Delyan Peevski and the and APS, led by the founder of the party Ahmed Dogan. While the parties slightly increased their combined share of seats in Parliament, bitter personal and organizational disputes tarnished the image of the party. However, more importantly, the continued dominance of DPS-NN by Delyan Peevski bodes is a further demonstration about the importance of state capture to Bulgarian politics. He notoriously represents the fusion of political power, business interests, media control, and judicial influence in the country and for many Bulgarians, Peevski is the embodiment of the corruption problem. Still, he continues to be a most relevant political actor, signalling that true political change remains unattainable. The third takeaway from the elections is the continued re-generation in the extreme right segment of the party system. In the 2023 elections Vazrazhdane (Revival) was the only party of openly nationalist position in Parliament, but in 2024, two parties took away from its votes and made it into Parliament: Velichie (Greatness) in June and MECh and Velichie in October. The newest entry into Parliament, Moral, Edinstvo, Chest/Morality, Unity, Honor (MECh, meaning sword in Bulgarian) is a nationalist, populist and euro-sceptic party founded earlier in 2024 by Rosen Vasilev, formed MP from ITN and PP. Similar to Velichie, it got many votes among the younger voters, using TikTok to promote its anti-establishment messages. However, unable to fill two of the seats it won, the party faction in Parliament was disbanded and the MPs elected on its ticket became independent. The story of MECh is very typical of the new party formations in the country. Taken together, these developments do not paint an optimistic picture of Bulgaria's politics. It remains to be seen how stable the governing coalition formed in early 2025 by GERB, BSP and ITN will be, and where it will lead the country. While progress to the Eurozone has followed entry into Schengen, social divisions in the country continue to accompany this progress making future prospects uncertain. Since joining the EU in 2007, Romania's democratic system has undergone a complex evolution, marked by both institutional consolidation and emerging structural vulnerabilities (e.g. economy, justice) (Ghinea and Ionescu 2024). Over the past 36 years, the country has held 10 regular national elections characterized by relatively stable competition between two dominant parties: PSD and PNL. Despite their ideological differences, the main post-communist mainstream parties have traditionally converged on key strategic priorities, particularly European integration and neoliberal economic policies. A turning point in Romania's party system occurred in 2015 with the reform of party law, which significantly lowered the barriers to party registration. This liberalization opened the political arena to new entrants and led to a wave of party system fragmentation. Electoral volatility and the rise of challenger parties followed in the 2016, 2020, and 2024 elections. The effective number of electoral parties increased markedly from 3.8 in 2016 to 5.4 in 2020. A similar trend can be observed in the effective number of parliamentary parties, which rose from 3.5 (2016) to 4.3 (2020). The combined vote share of mainstream parties has steadily declined, from 90.2% in 2008 to just over 60% by 2020. Challenger (e.g. anti-corruption/anti-establishment) and far-right parties have capitalized on this erosion of traditional party dominance, moving from political marginality in 2008 to gathering over 25% of the vote in 2020. This fragmentation has rendered single-party governments impossible, necessitating fragile and often unstable coalitions, which in turn has exacerbated executive volatility and policy incoherence (Stan and Zaharia 2025). The political agreement signed in 2021 between PSD, PNL, and UDMR fuelled this instability by implementing a rotating premiership: the PNL was to lead the government until 2023, after which a PSD prime minister would take over until the 2024 elections. While designed to ensure continuity, the arrangement has drawn public criticism and contributed to deepening political apathy and low trust in institutions, as consistently evidenced in public opinion surveys in 2023 and 2024. In this context, Romania's diaspora, estimated at 4 to 6 million citizens, has remained a critical electoral force. Since the 2009 presidential elections, when diaspora votes contributed decisively to re-elect incumbent President Traian Băsescu, this external electorate has influenced domestic political outcomes in ways that challenge traditional geographic assumptions about political power. As Romania entered the high-stakes 2024 electoral cycle, the ruling grand coalition was strategically positioned to manage and dominate the compressed electoral calendar. For the first time since 2004, local, presidential, legislative, as well as EP elections were all scheduled within the same year. Testing their solidity through a joint list for the EP elections, PSD and PNL confirmed their control. However, they decided to field separate candidates for the presidential and parliamentary elections later in the year. Meanwhile, Bucharest's incumbent mayor, Nicușor Dan, an independent candidate previously known as the founding leader of the 2016 born challenger party, Union Save Romania, appeared credible for re-election, a developme