Bulgarian nationalists may topple government over Russia sanctions -...

3^min

Bulgaria's nationalist Attack party will work to topple the government if Sofia backs a new round of Western sanctions against Russia over its annexation of Crimea, the party's leader told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

Attack holds the balance of power in the Bulgarian parliament, and its threat is an extreme example of the domestic pressures European governments face in taking a position on the worst crisis in East-West relations since the Cold War.

If the party pulls the plug on Prime Minister Plamen Oresharski's minority coalition government, it could tip the European Union's poorest member state back into political instability. Months of street protests felled one government last year and almost toppled its successor, at a time when the country was struggling to revive economic growth.

Bulgarian leaders' position in relation to the Ukraine crisis is especially precarious. On the one hand, the country has pushed for closer ties with the EU bloc, which it joined seven years ago. On the other hand, it is almost entirely dependent on Russian energy supplies, and many Bulgarians feel a deep affinity for their giant neighbour across the Black Sea.

Attack, which is a noisy critic of the United States and Bulgaria's NATO membership, is the only Bulgarian party to openly champion Russia's intervention in the Ukraine.

"If the current Bulgarian government supports them (tougher sanctions), I will take a firm opposition line towards it and I will work for its toppling," party chairman Volen Siderov said in an interview in his office in the Bulgarian capital.

"Then we will have to ask ourselves the question what government and what majority will come after it, whether it will be the same, or whether it can be changed," he said.

"It is a problem for the voters, who have to wake up and finally understand that the government in Bulgaria should have an independent policy and put an end to colonialism that we have been forced into."

As if to underscore Bulgarian ties to Russia, Siderov has antique guns and swords fixed on his office wall - some of them relics of Russia's wars against Turkey in the 19th century that helped Bulgaria throw off 500 years of Ottoman rule.

REUTERS