Bulgaria’s president urges new government to focus on security and inflation

Bulgaria’s President Rumen Radev urged the new caretaker government he appointed on Tuesday to keep the Black Sea country secure amid the war in Ukraine and deal with the fastest rise in consumer prices in 24 years.

The European Union and NATO member will head to the polls in October for a fourth time in less than two years, after the coalition government of reformist Prime Minister Kiril Petkov collapsed in June just six months after taking office.

“The risk for the war (in Ukraine) to include new territories is real and your first priority has to be to prevent the country from being drawn into the conflict,” Radev told the new ministers at their inauguration ceremony.

“Taming surging prices is an important task,” he added.

The caretaker cabinet led by Galab Donev, 55, a presidential advisor on social policies and former labor minister, also faces uncertainty over natural gas supplies ahead of the winter.

The new government, however, may soften its line toward Russia, which could entail efforts to renew Russian gas imports as well as attempts to mend diplomatic ties with Moscow, strained under the outgoing government.

Petkov expelled 70 Russian diplomatic staff over espionage concerns and refused to pay for Russian gas in rubles, which led Moscow to cut supplies to a country almost completely dependent on Russian gas.

Donev’s government will have to decide whether to reconfirm a deal arranged by Petkov’s government to import US liquefied natural gas or to seek other options.

Nikolay Milkov, a career diplomat and ambassador to France, will take charge of foreign policy while tech investor Rosen Hristov will lead the energy ministry. Presidential advisor Dimitar Stoyanov will take over the defense ministry.

The next election is likely to produce a splintered parliament after recent opinion polls showed Petkov’s centrist PP party running even with the center-right party of former long-serving premier Boyko Borissov.

Surveys also show the parties in Petkov’s outgoing coalition have little chance of forming a new majority and point to an increase of support for nationalist and pro-Russian parties. [Reuters]