site.btaUPDATED Parliament Rejects Motion on Anti-Euro National Referendum

The National Assembly on Wednesday voted, 65-110 with 28 abstentions, to reject a draft resolution, moved by Velichie, on the conduct a national referendum with the question "Do you agree that the Bulgarian lev should be the only official currency in Bulgaria until 2043?"

The votes in favour came from Vazrazhdane, MECh and There Is Such a People (TISP) and Velichie. Of GERB-UDF, 52 MPs were against and six abstained. All MPs of Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria and MRF-New Beginning voted against. Of BSP-United Left, 2 MPs voted against and 14 abstained. All MPs of the Alliance for Rights and Freedoms abstained.

The plenary debate on the motion was resumed on Wednesday on Velichie's initiative, after Parliament ran short of time in early July to complete it before its summer recess.

After the vote, the Vazrazhdane MPs left the debating chamber. "We, Vazrazhdane, see no point in staying here in this chamber, which is occupied, which has usurped democracy and practically ruins Bulgaria's future," Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov said, addressing the legislature.

He commented that less than a third of the MPs had backed democracy in Bulgaria, whereas the rest had proved that "they are scared stiff by the Bulgarian people." Kostadinov noted  that the overwhelming majority of the Bulgarian people opposes Bulgaria's eurozone entry, wants the Bulgarian lev to be kept and a referendum on the subject to be held but, as he put it, the people are prevented from doing this by "an oligarchic plutocratic stratum that has usurped power." "This parliament is illegitimate and does not represent the Bulgarian people but merely the people who are inside it," the Vazrazhdane leader said further.

Tsoncho Ganev MP of Vazrazhdane commented that the parliamentary majority "keeps trampling on the right of 604,000 Bulgarian citizens, who joined the sign-in for a referendum, to be consulted on whether Bulgaria should join the eurozone." "Don't hide, and don't be afraid of the Bulgarian people," he called on the lawmakers, warning that, if they do so, the incumbent government will inevitably be brought down, as were the cabinets of Boyko Borissov and Plamen Oresharski. 

TISP Deputy Floor Leader Stanislav Balabanov said that his parliamentary group will back the referendum motion "because it is important to consult the people in principle". The eurozone topic, however, is over, and is a useless waste of time because Bulgaria will anyway enter the eurozone on January 1, 2026, Balabanov argued.

***

Back in April 2023, Vazrazhdane submitted to Parliament a proposal for organizing a national referendum with the same question. A total of 603,356 signatures were collected in support of the proposal, of which 132,383 or 21.9% were found to be invalid. The 470,973 valid signatures were enough to bind Parliament to consider the initiative.

In July 2023, the legislature voted, 68-98 with 46 abstentions, to reject Vazrazhdane's motion. The majority argued that it was unlawful to submit to a referendum matters regulated by international treaties concluded by Bulgaria and that such a referendum could only be held before such treaties have been ratified.

Later that month, Vazrazhdane petitioned the Constitutional Court to declare unconstitutional the National Assembly's refusal to organize a referendum. In February 2024, the Constitutional Court dismissed conclusively Vazrazhdane's initiative to hold such national referendum.

In May 2025, Vazrazhdane yet again submitted to Parliament their motion on the conduct of a referendum on postponing the adoption of the euro.

In May 2025, Bulgarian President Rumen Radev proposed to the National Assembly to resolve on holding a national referendum in which Bulgarians would be asked whether they agree to the introduction of the euro in Bulgaria in 2026. A month later, the Constitutional Court unanimously denied Radev's petition to declare unconstitutional the rejection of his euro adoption referendum proposal by National Assembly Chair Nataliya Kiselova.