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Events in the year 2024 in Bulgaria .
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Events in the year 2024 in Bulgaria .
The politics of Bulgaria take place in a framework of a parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the prime minister is the head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the National Assembly. The Judiciary is independent of the executive and the legislature.
The Schengen Agreement is a treaty which led to the creation of Europe's Schengen Area, in which internal border checks have largely been abolished. It was signed on 14 June 1985, near the town of Schengen, Luxembourg, by five of the ten member states of the then European Economic Community. It proposed measures intended to gradually abolish border checks at the signatories' common borders, including reduced-speed vehicle checks which allowed vehicles to cross borders without stopping, allowing residents in border areas freedom to cross borders away from fixed checkpoints, and the harmonisation of visa policies.
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church, legally the Patriarchate of Bulgaria, is an autocephalous Eastern Orthodox jurisdiction based in Bulgaria. It is the first medieval recognised patriarchate outside the Pentarchy and the oldest Slavic Orthodox church, with some 6 million members in Bulgaria and between 1.5 and 2 million members in a number of other European countries, Asia, the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. It was recognized as autocephalous in 1945 by the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople.
The Patriarch of All Bulgaria is the patriarch of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. The patriarch is officially styled as Patriarch of All Bulgaria and Metropolitan of Sofia. The current patriarch Daniel acceded to this position on 30 June 2024.
Bulgaria plans to adopt the euro and become the 21st member state of the eurozone. The Bulgarian lev has been on a currency board since 1997, with a fixed exchange rate initially against the Deutsche Mark and subsequently its replacement the euro. Bulgaria's target date for introduction of the euro was 1 January 2025. However, the 2024 ECB convergence report concluded that Bulgaria did not meet the convergence criteria due to high inflation, so this timeline has been delayed. The Bulgarian National Bank and several Bulgarian politicians have expressed their desire to join as soon as possible, and project that inflation will be low enough by the end of 2024. If Bulgaria adopts the euro, it will become the second national currency of the country after the lev, which was introduced over 140 years ago. The fixed exchange rate is 1.95583 lev for 1 euro.
European Parliament elections were held in Bulgaria on 20 May 2007. It was the country's first European election, having joined the Union on 1 January of that year. The country still had 18 MEPs, no change from before the election. Until Bulgaria could hold these elections, the country was represented by MEPs appointed by the National Assembly.
The visa policy of the Schengen Area is a component within the wider area of freedom, security and justice policy of the European Union. It applies to the Schengen Area and to other EU member states except Ireland. The visa policy allows nationals of certain countries to enter the Schengen Area via air, land or sea without a visa for up to 90 days within any 180-day period. Nationals of certain other countries are required to have a visa to enter and, in some cases, transit through the Schengen area.
The Schengen Area is an area encompassing 29 European countries that have officially abolished border controls at their mutual borders. Being an element within the wider area of freedom, security and justice policy of the European Union (EU), it mostly functions as a single jurisdiction under a common visa policy for international travel purposes. The area is named after the 1985 Schengen Agreement and the 1990 Schengen Convention, both signed in Schengen, Luxembourg.
National identity cards are identity documents issued to citizens of most European Union and European Economic Area (EEA) member states, with the exception of Denmark and Ireland. As a new common identity card model replaced the various formats in use from 2 August 2021, recently issued ID cards are harmonized across the EEA, while older ID cards are currently being phased out according to Regulation (EU) 2019/1157.
An election of the Members of the European Parliament from Bulgaria to the European Parliament was held on 25 May 2014 as part of the larger European Parliament election. After a decision by the European Council in 2013, Bulgaria was allocated 17 seats in the European Parliament for the Eighth European Parliament.
Mariya Ivanova Gabriel is a Bulgarian politician who served as Deputy Prime Minister of Bulgaria and Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2023 to 2024. A member of the GERB party, she previously served as European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth from 2019 to 2023, European Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society from 2017 to 2019 and Member of the European Parliament from 2009 to 2017.
Boyko Metodiev Borisov is a Bulgarian politician who served as Prime Minister of Bulgaria on three separate occasions, serving a total of 9 years between 2009 and 2021, making him Bulgaria's longest-serving post-communist Prime Minister. He has also served as leader of the GERB party since 2010.
A referendum on introducing electronic voting was held in Bulgaria on 25 October 2015 alongside local elections. Although the referendum resulted was approved by a wide margin, turnout was far below the required threshold to make its result binding.
Rumen Georgiev Radev is a Bulgarian politician and former major general who has been the president of Bulgaria since 22 January 2017.
Early parliamentary elections were held in Bulgaria on 2 October 2022 to elect members of the 48th National Assembly. The snap election was called after the fall of the Petkov Government, a four-party coalition, in June 2022. This was the fourth parliamentary election since 2021, an unprecedented situation in Bulgarian history, the previous elections being the April, July, and November 2021 elections.
Kiril Petkov Petkov is a Bulgarian politician, economist, and entrepreneur, who served as Prime Minister of Bulgaria from December 2021 to August 2022. He is the co-leader of We Continue the Change, a political party he co-founded with Asen Vasilev.
Nikolai Denkov Denkov is a Bulgarian politician who served as Prime Minister of Bulgaria from 2023 to 2024. A member of the PP party, he previously served as a Member of the National Assembly from 2022 to 2023 and as Minister of Education and Science in 2017 and from 2021 to 2022. Denkov is a physicist, physical chemist and chemist. He is a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and was a lecturer at the University of Sofia.
Events in the year 2023 in Bulgaria.
Bulgarian political crisis is a period of instability in Bulgaria, which has seen the country face six elections over three years: April 2021, July 2021, November 2021, October 2022, April 2023 and June 2024.
The Forty-Ninth National Assembly was a convocation of the National Assembly of Bulgaria, formed according to the results of the early parliamentary elections in Bulgaria, held on 2 April 2023. It was replaced by the 50th National Assembly, summoned by the President on the 17th of June.
