The Levant Files

  Iran has issued a series of escalating warnings to Bulgaria over Sofia's decision to host American aerial refuelling aircraft, marking one of the first times an EU and NATO member state in the Balkans has been directly threatened with consequences over the widening US-Iran conflict. The dispute began on 21 July, when Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei responded to reports that Washington had submitted a diplomatic note requesting approval for the deployment of up to eight Boeing KC-135 tanker aircraft and up to 250 US troops at Bezmer Air Base in south-eastern Bulgaria between 24 July and 1 October. Baghaei said any activity facilitating US attacks on Iran would amount to complicity in what he called "aggression and war crimes", and urged Bulgaria not to become "an accomplice of aggressors and lawbreakers".  The warning failed to change the outcome. Bulgaria's National Assembly approved the measure on 22 July by 136 votes to 13, with two ab...

Bulgaria's eighth parliamentary election in five years produced the clearest result the country has seen since 1997, but the landslide victory of former president Rumen Radev and his newly formed Progressive Bulgaria (PB) party is already sending a chill through European Union capitals. While the vote may finally end the Balkan state's grinding political paralysis, it has also raised urgent questions about Bulgaria's reliability as an EU partner on Ukraine, Russia, and the bloc's geopolitical agenda. The Vote and Its Result Held on 19 April 2026, the election saw PB secure approximately 44.6 percent of the vote and around 131 seats in the 240-seat National Assembly — an outright parliamentary majority. GERB-SDS, the centre-right party of former prime minister Boyko Borissov, collapsed to just 13.4 percent and 39 seats, while the reformist We Continue the Change–Democratic Bulgaria coalition (PP-DB) took 12.6 percent and 37 seats. In a striking historical footnote, the B...

North Macedonia 's long-standing ambition to join the European Union remains in a state of paralysis, as deep-seated historical, cultural, and linguistic disputes with neighboring Bulgaria continue to block its path to accession. The deadlock, which has persisted for years, centers on fundamental questions of national identity and language, with Sofia maintaining a firm veto until Skopje meets a set of contentious political demands. The core of the issue revolves around Bulgaria's insistence that North Macedonia must fulfill the terms of the so-called " French proposal " from 2022, which requires the country to amend its constitution to formally include the " Bulgarian community ." This requirement is a key precondition for advancing the EU accession process. The historical, cultural, and linguistic differences are keeping the EU door closed for North Macedonia, with "fraternal" Bulgaria holding the key, refusing to back down until its neighb...