site.btaUPDATED Vanya Grigorova Leaves Socialists' Group in Sofia Municipal Council

Vanya Grigorova, one of the most recognizable members of the Socialists' group in the Sofia Municipal Council, announced Thursday that she is leaving the group. "As of June 12, 2025, I am leaving the group of the BSP for Bulgaria local coalition in the Sofia Municipal Council," she said. 

Grigorova explained that she has "reached the limit of compromises" she can make and risks losing her identity if she goes farther.

One specific reason she mentioned is "the intransparent replacement" of the CEO of Metropoliten Sofia EAD, the company that builds and operates the Sofia underground train service. "Nobody understood - I didn't - why they removed a respectable professional as Prof. Stoyan Bratoev from the operational management of the company and why our group in the Municipal Council had to support that," she said. 

Grigorova vowed to remain "an outspoken opponent of the policy of Mayor Vassil Terziev and the Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria coalition". 

She also said that the balance sheets of the Sofia municipal transport companies, which the Municipal Council reviewed last week, show that the companies are being steered to bankruptcy and gradual privatization of the public transport service. She argued that the Mayor shares in the responsibility for that. 

She went on to explain that she is leaving the Socialist group also because Sofia has been taken hostage in the name of the survival of the coalition that runs Bulgaria and in which a Socialist-led coalition is one of the partners.

Grigorova believes that the only party which "systematically achieves its goals in the Municipal Council" of Sofia is GERB. "I cannot blame them for it: they pursue and attain their goals and the important thing for me is where we stand and what happens with the hundreds of thousands of people who voted for us and who cast a vote to change the model of government: a model that is based on privatization, the private city model," she added.

She grabbed an opportunity to speak out on issues of national importance. She slammed the adoption of the euro in Bulgaria, likely from the beginning of 2026, as "rushed" and "unjustified". She warned that intended changes in the pension system "will untie the hands of private funds to make high-risk investments with the money for pensions". She also said that the Bulgarian State Railway is being hollowed out and that railway services will be privatized.

Save Sofia, the former partners in the coalition behind Mayor Vasil Terziev, described Grigorova's decision to leave the Socialist group as "a political earthquake".

A former union expert, Grigorova was the runner-up in the 2023 mayoral elections in Sofia and narrowly lost to Vassil Terziev, who was nominated in the race by a coalition of Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria and Save Sofia.

She was also an outspoken opponent of the replacement of the long-serving CEO of the Sofia Metro in April 2025, as was Mayor Vassil Terziev himself.