The acting Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice Andrey Yankulov has crushed the political speculations surrounding the legitimacy of the acting Prime Minister Andrey Gyurov. In his sharp position, he categorically rejected the widely circulated claims that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) had confirmed the legality of Gyurov's removal as Deputy Governor of the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) in 2024. Yankulov described the interpretations of the complex legal text as a frank skit and described them as a "complete break with reality".
The conflict dates back to the summer of 2024, when the central bank removed Gyurov based on an act of the now-closed Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC). The reason for the "incompatibility" then it turned out to be the ownership of a modest 2% stake in a company whose nominal value was only 100 leva, as well as his participation in two non-profit associations.
According to the Minister of Justice, the BNB leadership acted as a "rubber stamp", repeating the conclusions of the anti-corruption body without an ounce of independent judgment.
"The BNB Board of Directors made its decision less than a month after the CPC decision to establish incompatibility in a hypothesis of automatism and repetition of the conclusion, without following any adequate procedure for ruling on such an important issue," emphasized Andrey Yankulov, adding that Gyurov was categorically denied the explicitly requested right to defense.
Yankulov did not spare his criticism of the CPC itself, calling it a structure that mainly produced "noise and disappointment", which applied the law emphatically selectively.
In recent days, certain political leaders have tried to use the published opinion of the Advocate General of the CJEU in the preliminary ruling case C-611/24 to attack the legitimacy of the current prime minister. Their support was based on the fact taken out of context that, according to the document, the national Law on the BNB does not in itself contradict European law.
Yankulov, however, denounced the deliberately silent essence of the opinion. The European magistrate explicitly emphasizes that EU law does not allow a national bank to dismiss its management staff by blindly and automatically accepting findings from an external body. The BNB was obliged to conduct its own independent analysis, collect evidence and guarantee full rights of defense – standards that the Bulgarian institution has violated.
"I hope that the subsequent text will not hinder the above-mentioned interpreters as much as the conclusion of the Advocate General, who was hastily made into a national hero by certain political leaders for things he did not say," the minister said sharply. Independent legal experts in our country also confirm that owning a symbolic stake that does not carry control over the company can hardly create a real conflict of interest that threatens the independence of the central bank.
While the political storm was gaining strength, another key detail emerged in the public space, revealing the serious concerns in the upper echelons of the BNB about the upcoming final slap in the face in Luxembourg. Shortly before the Advocate General announced his conclusion, the central bank’s management made an attempt to quietly thwart the ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU.
The institution has sent a request to the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) to completely terminate the case on Andrey Gyurov’s appeal and close it without a decision. According to analysts, this unprecedented move reinforces Yankulov’s thesis that the dismissal was a targeted institutional attack, the legal arguments of which expire when they clash with European standards of independence.
In the end, the Bulgarian parliament finally found that Gyurov’s powers as deputy governor were automatically terminated with his appointment as acting prime minister, without the need to vote on his resignation, which puts an end to the disputes surrounding his current legitimacy at the head of the executive branch.