GERB leader Boyko Borissov leaves a polling station in Sofia, October 2022. Photo: EPA/VASSIL DONEV.
Bulgaria’s Security Agency on Wednesday cut off budget-funded protection for GERB party leader and former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov and the oligarch and New Beginning party leader Delyan Peevski.
Government officials from recent election-winning party Progressive Bulgaria insisted the decision was unrelated to political dynamics; Borissov and Peevski are now in opposition.
“This is not a political act and shouldn’t be treated as such,” Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev said. “[Borissov and Peevski] have enough resources to hire their own security if they feel threatened. The state-funded security which protected them for more than a decade is over.”
Bulgaria’s Law on the National Service for Protection entitles MPs to security personnel if they face a verified security risk; however, the institution has never addressed whether there has ever been a risk assessment process for the duo, or whether the two politicians were abusing their powers.
Peevski has used protection privileges since at least 2016, even when he was not an MP; in 2016, the protection service claimed that the reasons for protecting Peevski were “a state secret”.
Stripping Peevski and Borissov of state protection has long been a public topic, mainly raised by the opposition parties We Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria, as well as during street protests.
“This security, as we’ve said before, was paid for years with millions of taxpayers’ money and it’s vague why it was there in the first place“, said We Continue the Change member and former Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov. In December, the two parties drafted a bill, approved on first reading, to limit the circle of senior officials entitled to state protection.
Despite its reformist campaign, Progressive Bulgaria declined to support the bill in May and also did not support a proposal to create a commission to investigate Peevski’s financial assets; the US sanctioned him under the Global Magnitsky Act in 2021.
GERB criticised the latest decision. “This seems like an emotional, dare I say political and not at all institutional, decision,” GERB member Tomislav Donchev told the media. “The security of the Prime Minister is not to be downplayed but I wouldn’t downplay the security of former Prime Ministers – in Bulgaria we have a historical problem with keeping our former leaders safe.”
Fellow GERB member Toma Bikov added that as recently as a week ago a threat was made to Borissov – but declined to provide further information.
Peevski stated through his party’s social media that he welcomed the change. He said it was a result of a re-evaluation probe from December that he had filed himself on whether he still needs security. He called it “good news” and dismissed allegations he had turned the service into a personal bodyguard as “propaganda” by We Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria.
The security services have had a new director since May 8, the day the new government assumed office.
