One of the least covered political stories in Central and Eastern Europe has been the mass protests against the government of Prime Minister Boyko Borissov in Bulgaria. The latest string of corruption scandals facing Borissov and his government, which have been in power for over 10 years, seems to have become the last straw. Crowds flooded the streets to protest the scandals – at one point reaching 100,000 protesters in Sofia – demanding an immediate resignation of the government and snap elections.

In this episode of Talk Eastern Europe, Adam and Maciek discuss the situation in the country with Radosveta Vassileva a Bulgarian legal scholar and author with New Eastern Europe. They talk about the current context, the strength of the protests, what the European Commission is (not really) doing, Russian influence in the country, COVID-19 in Bulgaria, and what might come next.
At the end of the episode, Adam and Maciek reflect on the podcast and its developments on the occasion of the 50th episode. And of course, the shout out to all of the patrons!

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Resources
- “Bulgaria: Will Borissov’s government survive this summer?” New Eastern Europe . 13 July 2020. https://neweasterneurope.eu/2020/07/13/bulgaria-will-borissovs-government-survive-this-summer/

- Rule of Law, Human Rights and Democracy in Bulgaria and Beyond – A personal blog of Dr. Radosveta Vassileva: https://radosvetavassileva.blog/

- “Russia’s Political Influence in Bulgaria” by Andrey Grashkin. Foreign Policy Research Institute: https://www.fpri.org/article/2020/01/russias-political-influence-in-bulgaria/

Music featured in the podcast:
Mining by Moonlight by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/4055-mining-by-moonlight License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Talk Eastern Europe is produced by Maciej Makulski and Adam Reichardt. The podcast is affiliated with New Eastern Europe, published by the Jan Nowak-Jeziorański College of Eastern Europe in Wrocław. Additional funding for this episode came from the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs s in the framework of the “Public Diplomacy 2020 – New dimension” grant programme.