DISINFO: European Commission’s financial revenge against Bulgaria may have started
SUMMARY
Is the European Commission's punishment and revenge against Bulgaria starting? Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev declared that the European Commission is initiating proceedings against his country for excessive deficit. It is clear that the European Commission is using European funds as a weapon of political coercion.
RESPONSE
No evidence is provided to support the claim, which aims to promote a recurring pro-Kremlin disinformation narrative about an interventionist European Union who targets the governments it doesn’t like.
The so-called Excessive Deficit Procedure is a decision of economic nature, not political. The report from the European Commission where this decision was signaled also mentioned Germany, Estonia, Latvia and Slovenia, a crucial piece of information that is deliberately omitted from this disinformation story, as it turns the claim that the move is some sort of political retaliation against Bulgaria necessarily false.
Before the EU’s announcement, Bulgaria’s Finance Minister Galab Donev estimated that the country’s budget deficit was likely to hit 7.4% of gross domestic product this year. This necessarily would trigger an EU disciplinary action, as countries breaching the bloc’s fiscal rules are required to bring their deficit back below 3% of GDP within a set timeframe and are subject to closer budgetary monitoring by the European Commission. The EU’s forecast of Bulgaria’s deficit for 2026-2027 is 4% of GDP.
See other examples of similar disinformation narratives, such as claims that the EU and the USA finance the political destabilisation of Poland and Hungary, that Brussels cracks down on pro-Trump European leaders, that EU loans granted to Moldova before the elections can be considered bribes, or that the European Commission finally broke Orbán by investing heavily in Tisza's political project.