BULGARIA: Bulgaria's three leading parties finally agreed to form a coalition government yesterday, ending an often bitter seven-week impasse that threatened to derail the country's application for European Union membership in 2007.
Socialist leader Sergey Stanishev will be the new prime minister, succeeding ex-king Simeon Saxe-Coburg, who expects his allies to take five cabinet posts in the new government but had to abandon his own attempt to hold on to the premiership.
The mostly ethnic-Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms, which came third in the June 25th general election, will also join a coalition that should control 169 of parliament's 240 seats, enough to push through vital, EU-stipulated reforms.
"The stability of this government will bring EU membership closer. This is the driving force for this coalition," said Mr Stanishev, who was furious with Mr Saxe-Coburg last month when he pulled out of a similar coalition deal at the last moment.
Despite seeing his allies come second to the Socialists at the polls, Mr Saxe-Coburg vowed never to support an alliance that he did not lead, having guided Bulgaria to the brink of EU membership after returning from exile in 2001.
But he struck a conciliatory note yesterday, amid warnings from Brussels that it was growing impatient with the failure of Bulgaria's politicians to place national interest above personal ambition.
"This is a positive signal to Europe, and I think and hope that with a common effort, we can achieve integration, the goal we have been working towards for years," said the former boy-king, who was exiled by the communists at the age of eight.
The coalition is expected to win approval from parliament this week, allowing it to start clearing a backlog of reforms and cleaning up after floods that devastated swathes of farmland and transport infrastructure in recent months.
"This government has only two tasks: EU entry and handling the aftermath of the floods," said Evgeni Dainov, director of Bulgaria's Centre for Social Practices, who also voiced the widespread fear that recrimination could wreck relations within the coalition.
"There is a huge possibility the government will not last for four years," he warned. "After the possible implementation of the required EU reforms, the difficulties will appear."
The alliance united around the non-partisan Plamen Oresharski as finance minister and proposed that Meglena Kuneva retain her position as EU integration minister.