site.btaUPDATED Renew Europe Urges European Commission to Suspend Recovery and Resilience Payments until Political Prisoners' Release

The Renew Europe Political Group in the European Parliament "urges the European Commission to suspend Recovery and Resilience Facility [RRF] payments linked to judicial reform and anti-corruption until political prisoners are released and institutional independence is restored," the Group's President Valerie Hayer said, quoted by her political group in a press release on Friday. 

"The situation represents a broader European concern, undermining the EU's democratic values and strategic interests in the Black Sea region. Renew Europe calls for an urgent fact-finding mission to Bulgaria to assess rule-of-law compliance and the legality of opposition detentions, including the case of Blagomir Kotsev, the democratically elected Mayor of Varna, who remains in custody for three months without credible charges," the press release says. "For Renew Europe, this debate is a test of the EU's credibility: European funds must not sustain state capture, and defending democracy in Bulgaria means defending democracy across the European Union," the group said.

Speaking at a news conference in Strasbourg earlier in the day, Renew Europe spokesperson and press officer Vincent Stuer called for "a topical debate on the ongoing assault on democratic institutions and the rule of law in Bulgaria at the [European] Parliament's session next week." 

"Yesterday the Sofia court has again refused or rejected the appeal of Mayor Blagomir Kotsev to be released from detention awaiting politically motivated trial. This is the sixth time. And it is a problem for all of us, because the case forms part of a larger assault and pattern of state capture in the country. We, as Renew Group called for his release awaiting trial, an immediate formal review of the case, and the suspension of the second disbursement of the Recovery and Resilience Facility fully. Indeed, the conditions of the RRF were written explicitly with an eye on strengthening the rule of law in the country, and now the opposite is happening, anti-corruption institutions are used as a political weapon. It's become a bit of a cliche to say that democracy hands the tools to its opponents to ignore it or undermine it from within," Stuer said. "We actually give them the money to do so as well, and it needs to stop," he added.

On September 23, 2025, Hayer wrote to three EU Commissioners arguing that RRF payments to Bulgaria should be suspended over the case of the Varna mayor. In early October, a spokesperson for the European Commission explained that there was no connection between the two issues. Meanwhile, the EC positively assessed Bulgaria's second payment request under the RRF, specifying that the reform of the Commission for Anti-Corruption and Illegal Assets Forfeiture remains unfulfilled, and proposed to temporarily defer a portion of the payment.