# Tens of thousands protest corruption and budget plan in Bulgaria
*Event date: 2025-12-01*
Tens of thousands of people protested across Bulgaria against the draft 2026 budget, public corruption and the government of Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov.
The largest demonstrations took place in Sofia, where crowds filled the square outside the National Assembly building, but rallies also spread to at least a dozen other cities. DW reported that one organizer put the attendance in the capital at 50,000, underscoring the scale of the anger directed at the minority coalition government.
The protests focused first on the budget. Critics want the government to keep its promise to withdraw the draft 2026 plan, which proposed higher taxes on dividends and increased social security contributions. They also object to broader public sector spending increases, which they say could deepen corruption rather than improve public services.
That fiscal dispute has become inseparable from a larger political complaint. Protesters chanted “Resignation!” and displayed signs reading “Mafia” and “Young Bulgaria without the mafia.” Those slogans show that the crowd saw the budget not as a technical issue but as part of a system they believe protects entrenched interests.
The government has already been forced to react. After protests earlier in the week, Zhelyazkov promised on Nov. 27 that the cabinet would withdraw the draft and prepare a new one. But the latest mobilization suggests that promise was not enough to restore public trust.
Bulgaria’s corruption ranking adds context to the unrest. DW described the country as one of the most corrupt in the European Union, behind only Hungary on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index among EU members. For many protesters, that means the budget debate is really about whether the state serves the public or a political machine.
The protests were mostly peaceful in central Sofia while the main rally was under way, but violence followed after the crowd began to disperse. Some demonstrators threw rocks, bottles and firecrackers, set garbage containers on fire and damaged a police van. Groups also vandalised the headquarters of the ruling party and another party supporting the government. Police responded with pepper spray, and at least 10 people were arrested while two officers were injured.
President Rumen Radev, who is independent, called for an end to the violence and urged the government to resign. His statement reflected how the political crisis had spread beyond the cabinet and into the broader state leadership. When the president publicly says resignation and early elections are the only way out, the pressure on the government becomes much harder to contain.
The timing is also important. Bulgaria is preparing to adopt the euro on Jan. 1, 2026, and the protests came just as the country was moving toward that major change. Critics fear that the budget choices could worsen economic conditions in the poorest EU member state and that greater public spending could entrench graft before the euro transition.
The immediate issue is the budget, but the deeper issue is legitimacy. The scale of the protests, the spread across cities and the direct call for resignation suggest that this is no longer a one-off demonstration. It is a serious challenge to the government’s authority and to the political order that produced it.
Bulgaria’s leaders now face a choice between trying to rework the budget again or confronting a wider demand for a political reset. The streets have already made their preference clear.
