The Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU in the first half of 2018 is assessed as "rather successful" by 46.2 per cent of Bulgarians and 24.3 per cent see it as totally successful, according to a poll by the Centre for Analyses and Marketing. It was presented Wednesday at the BTA press office by the Centre's director Yuli Pavlov.

 

The nationally representative poll was taken July 3-12 among 1,021 adult respondents.

 

The Bulgarian Presidency is assessed as "rather unsuccessful" by 14.4 per cent of respondents and as totally unsuccessful by 6.5 per cent.

 

The respondents in this poll gave the government of GERB and their junior partners of the United Patriots coalition a mark of 3.4 on a scale from 2 to 6 (six being the highest).

 

President Rumen Radev remains the politician with the highest approval rating (61.3 per cent approval and 31.2 per cent disapproval). He is followed by Ombudsman Maya Manolova with 58.2 per cent approval and 30.9 per cent disapproval. Third comes Sofia Mayor Yordanka Fandakova with 42.5 per cent approval and 40.3 per cent disapproval. Prime Minister Boyko Borissov is fourth with 41.6 per cent approval and 51.8 per cent disapproval. Next is Vice President Iliyana Iotova (40.9 and 48.1 per cent, respectively). 

The poll puts at the bottom of the approval rating the representatives of what it calls "the old Right wing": Hristo Ivanov, Roumen Hristov, Bozhidar Loukarski and Atanas Atanassov.

 

Asked whether they would vote for a party of entertainer Slavi Trifonov, 11.7 per cent say "yes" and 21.8 per cent say "yes rather than no". 43.8 per cent are determined not to vote and 16.6 per cent would rather not vote.

 

In the area of foreign policy, the majority of respondents have a pro-Western orientation. Asked what they believe to be the key foreign policy partners of Bulgaria, 52.7 per cent said Germany and 50.6 per cent Russia. Next in the answers, in this order, are France, the UK and the US. 

 

The largest number of Bulgarians (28.6 per cent) rely on NATO in the event of a national security threat for Bulgaria. The second largest group (22.4 per cent) rely on Russia.