site.btaCitizens Hold Protest and Counter-Protest in Stara Zagora over Budget and Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria

Citizens in Stara Zagora held two separate protests on Monday, one against the government and the 2026 budget and another against Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) and the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP).

Protesters against the budget arrived first in front of the Stara Zagora Municipality building, and a few minutes later they were joined by the second group.

The two groups traded verbal insults and slogans, but the heavy police presence prevented any incidents.

Protesters from the first group carried placards reading “We expect nothing and are disappointed again,” “We want Bulgaria to be our mother, not our stepmother,” “30 years of patience, 0 years of change,” “The state is ours and not for sale,” and “We don’t want promises, we want a future,” while chanting “Resignation,” “Mafia,” and “Thugs out.”

The second group held signs saying “CC-DB out of the protest and out of the State”, “We are not a backdrop for parties. The protest is for citizens”, “Who programmed the closure of 40% of the coal-fired power plants in the NRRP” and “[Continue] the Change – the killers of Bulgarian energy”.

Both groups said that no parties or political organizations stood behind the protesters’ actions.

The protests in Stara Zagora come against the backdrop of a broader wave of mobilization against the 2026 State Budget Bill and, more generally, against the direction of key reforms linked to EU funding. On 26 November, thousands of people filled central Sofia’s “Power Triangle” in a protest organized by Continue the Change; demonstrators tried to block MPs from leaving Parliament, and the rally later escalated into clashes with police.

On 1 December, large protests were again held in Sofia and in regional centres including Stara Zagora, Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas, Pleven and Lovech, this time under the banner of Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (CC–DB), with participants calling for the withdrawal and full reworking of what CC Chair Assen Vassilev described as a “disastrous” draft budget.

In parallel, employees of several state agencies have staged sectoral protests over the budget. On 26 November, staff of the Employment Agency, the General Labour Inspectorate and the Social Assistance Agency rallied in Sofia for a 20% pay rise and denounced the planned 5% increase for state administration employees as “frivolous and offensive”. Employees of regional structures, including the Regional Environment and Water Inspectorate in Stara Zagora, also joined the action, demanding higher pay and the restoration of seniority increments.

Tensions around the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) are particularly sensitive in the Stara Zagora region, which hosts the Mini Maritsa Iztok coal complex and has become a key hub for implementing European policies on energy and transition. At a Europe on Balkans: Cohesion Skills conference in Stara Zagora in February 2025, MEP Andrey Novakov stressed that the operation of the mining complexes is closely linked to Bulgaria’s national security and argued that this is not a resource the country can “afford to abandon lightly”. The same event underlined that 116 NRRP-funded projects worth BGN 26.5 million are being implemented in the region to establish STEM classrooms and modernise education, illustrating both the scale of EU investment and the stakes involved in the debate over the NRRP and the future of local industry.