Autor: Valentin Kardamski
The European Union has entered the most turbulent political and economic year in its existence. At a moment when the economies of almost all member states are in recession or stagnation, Ursula von der Leyen has asked EU governments for more than 135 billion dollars in new funding for Ukraine—money intended to stabilize Kyiv’s public finances and support its armed forces.
This figure is historically unprecedented. It comes at a time when even the most loyal European capitals are beginning—albeit timidly and fearfully—to acknowledge the obvious fact that the war is entering its final stage, and that this stage is unfavorable for Ukraine. The Russian army has the initiative, Ukrainian resources are depleting, mobilization capacity is exhausted, and the West is fatigued.
Despite this, Brussels insists that Europe continue to finance a conflict whose outcome is already becoming clear. This combination of political inertia and ideologically irrelevant obsession puts the EU in the position of a union throwing billions into a war it cannot win while its own states are sinking economically. While Ursula drafts letters obliging EU members to finance an already lost war, France is sinking under a monstrous budget deficit and public debt—threatening to drag the entire continent down—while the German economy is on life support. The two engines of the Old Continent are sputtering.
Against this backdrop, Bulgaria also appears as one of the most vulnerable points on Europe’s map. Our country is in a process of accelerating indebtedness, while the budget deficit grows. In 2025, as economists have warned, it is unclear whether the Bulgarian budget will survive at all.
Instead of stabilization, the government plans billions more for defense—which in practice means billions more under pressure to participate in a fantasized war against Russia, pushed by Brussels and Bulgarian neoliberal circles. Without the war, they become automatically irrelevant. It was the war that brought them to their positions in Europe and in Bulgaria.
Thus, these billions are not allocated for stabilizing Bulgaria’s dismantled security, but for another country and foreign interests.
All this coincides with our entry into the Eurozone, not by our own desire but advertised as a “strategic priority.” It appears as a second blow to citizens. The facts show that countries with weaker economies inside the Eurozone:
- lose monetary sovereignty,
- enter a regime of constant cuts,
- face price shocks,
- become even more dependent on ECB decisions tailored to the interests of the strong—Germany, France, the Netherlands.
Bulgaria is entering the Eurozone at a moment of economic decline, rising debt, and lack of investment—which makes the blow to the economy and households inevitable.
Meanwhile, it became clear that for an entire month Bulgaria has been selling the most expensive electricity for businesses in Europe.
The consequences will be only two:
- a sharp rise in the prices of goods, because businesses have no other simple choice;
- mass layoffs—because small and medium-sized enterprises will not survive.
In a global recession, where people are cutting consumption, Bulgarian businesses are being brought to their knees by their own government.
And this is no accident.
It is increasingly clear that the current authorities are preparing a hidden budgetary sabotage—a scheme in which they operate without control, take on enormous new debt, and leave the economy in free fall, so that the next government is forced to take unpopular measures such as massive tax increases, long-term freezing of wages and pensions, and the culprits can escape while proclaiming “there is no alternative” or “we are the alternative; the new government caused the crisis.”
We have seen such techniques many times in European politics—Greece in 2010, Italy in 2013, Portugal in 2011.
Now this model is being applied in Bulgaria.
While the EU struggles with a lack of resources for Ukraine, the United States is redirecting its attention to Latin America, where the USS Gerald R. Ford marks the largest American military presence in the region since 1989.
Washington is signaling to the world that it is preparing for confrontation in the South, while Europe is already left alone—with economic strain, uncovered military commitments, and internal political fractures.
The convergence of all these processes—the defeat of Ukraine, the crisis in the EU, Bulgaria’s indebtedness, expensive energy, planned budget disruptions, the Eurozone, and global reshuffling—shows one thing: Bulgaria is entering the most risky period since the beginning of the 21st century.
The state finds itself without strategic vision, without economic buffers, and without a coherent political elite capable of defending the national interest.
This is the moment when society must realize that:
foreign wars have a price,
foreign ideologies have an expiration date,
foreign decisions guarantee us nothing.
And above all, that the Bulgarian national interest can be protected only by Bulgaria and its citizens!