Bulgaria's Parliament Approves New Government to End Months of Coalition Talks

Bulgaria Approves New Government After Lengthy Talks

SOFIA (Reuters) - Bulgaria's parliament approved on Thursday a cabinet led by Rosen Zhelyazkov, a former parliament speaker, ending months of negotiations on the formation of a coalition government.

The centre-right GERB party won a snap election in October, the seventh held in the Balkan state in four years, but has had to hold tough talks with other political parties for more than two months in order to form a government.

Zhelyazkov, proposed as PM-designate by the largest parliamentary GERB-SDS group, received a mandate from President Rumen Radev on Wednesday to form a government.

Some 125 lawmakers at the 240-seat legislature approved Zhelyazkov's proposed cabinet in a vote on Thursday, opening the way for a new government to take office.

Bulgaria, the poorest member of the European Union and one of its most corrupt states, has been plagued by revolving-door governments since anti-graft protests in 2020 unseated a GERB coalition.

The NATO member needs political stability to speed up the uptake of EU funds into its creaking infrastructure and nudge it towards adopting the euro.

"Bulgaria needs a regular government that will implement policies supporting the democratic rule of law, the competitiveness of the economy, security, and protecting citizens' social rights," Zhelyazkov told the parliament ahead of the vote.

Bulgaria's plans to join the euro zone have been pushed back twice because of missed inflation targets. Zhelyazkov pledged on Wednesday that his government will help the country make it into the single-currency bloc.

(Reporting by Ivana Sekularac and Stoyan Nenov; Writing by Angeliki Koutanto; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)