FILE PHOTO: A general view shows the Bulgarian parliament during debates before the voting on a new government, Sofia, Bulgaria, July 3, 2024. REUTERS/Spasiyana Sergieva/File Photo
SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria will hold a snap parliamentary election, its seventh in just three years, on Oct. 27, President Rumen Radev said on Monday, following the failure of its political parties to agree a coalition government.
Radev said a caretaker government led by Dimitar Glavchev would be sworn in Bulgaria's parliament on Tuesday to steer the Black Sea nation until the election.
"Tomorrow I will also issue a decree about holding early parliamentary elections on October 27," Radev said after Glavchev presented his interim government to the president.
Bulgaria, a member of the European Union and NATO, has been plagued by revolving-door governments since anti-graft protests in 2020 unseated a coalition led by the centre-right GERB party.
GERB, currently the largest party in parliament, the reformist We Continue the Change (PP) and the small ITN parliamentary group each failed to build a stable coalition following an inconclusive June 8 election.
June's vote was triggered by the collapse in March of a coalition comprising GERB and the PP party. Both parties are broadly pro-EU and pro-market, but have been dogged by persistent bickering and personal rivalries.
Bulgaria sorely needs a period of stable government to improve the flow of EU funds into its creaking infrastructure.
The political stalemate is also hampering its plans to join the euro and to fully participate in Europe's open-border Schengen area.
(Reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic and Stoyan Nenov; Editing by Gareth Jones)
