Let some fresh air into Bulgaria
It’s time to open the windows and let some fresh air into Bulgaria. This country still smells of the gray, communist-era prefab blocks—monuments to a uniformity that kills the imagination. We have just four months to elect a democratic president, yet we are trapped in a cycle of disinformation and a toxic nostalgia for a past that never truly existed.
Why is democracy in our country always so difficult? Why does it feel so unnatural? Is it because its genesis has always been scarred by betrayals and upheavals? Is it because the transition is endless, and every subsequent goal feels like an uprising? From Bulgaria’s full membership in the EU on January 1, 2007, through the partial access to the Schengen Area on March 31, 2024, to the full land-border accession on January 1, 2025. And now, the long-awaited adoption of the Euro and full Eurozone membership as of January 1, 2026. Every one of these dates has claimed at least one government and sacrificed years of grit and defiance behind the scenes.
