Prime Minister Rumen Radev sent an open address to the political groups in the European Parliament through its president, Roberta Metsola. He said that while the government is focused on critical security issues, the Parliament is being used by Bulgarian members with limited political legitimacy at home to run a doomed national election campaign.
The letter follows a resolution adopted today that expresses support and solidarity with Bulgaria's investigation of drone attacks on commercial ships in the Black Sea and the rescue of crews in distress. Radev said unfounded and manipulative suggestions about the Bulgarian government were added at the last moment. He said the resolution has no legal value and called it telling and sad that Bulgarian members of the European Parliament are among the sponsors: Andrey Novakov, Andrey Kovachev, Eva Maydell, Emil Radev, Ilia Lazarov, Radan Kanev and Ilhan Kyuchyuk.
On behalf of the government, Radev said he categorically disagrees with and is perplexed by point 6, formally proposed by the Greens and inserted late into the draft Black Sea resolution. That point claims a weak diplomatic response and reaction toward Russia and a lack of concrete action. He said the positive assessment of Bulgaria's rapid response and rescue operations for the crews of the struck ships, set out in the earlier texts, is in practice rejected by point 6, undermining the document's purpose of expressing the Parliament's solidarity with the two Black Sea countries.
Radev called it absurd for members to urge Bulgaria to join NATO's anti-drone initiative when the defence minister has already announced the decision to join. He added that the initiative was announced in February 2025 and that the governments of the Bulgarian members now tabling such texts did nothing to include the country. He said the government does not accept members imposing, in a lecturing tone, the sovereign decisions Bulgaria should take.
He told members from other European states that Bulgaria is investigating the incidents and continues, with NATO and EU allies, efforts to identify who carried out the attacks. He said Bulgaria has always regarded the European Parliament as a respected institution meant to strengthen pro-European consensus, and that accusations over attacks in Bulgaria's exclusive economic zone in the Black Sea must rest on categorical facts.
Radev listed steps he said the lecturing text omits. Immediately after the first attacks, the government appealed to NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa for joint efforts to stop attacks on commercial ships. On 13 October 2026, the day two commercial ships were again attacked near Bulgarian territorial waters, the prime minister summoned the Russian ambassador in Sofia and said the attacks were unacceptable and that their logic points to the Russian side.
Bulgaria was the first country to join the multinational European Sky Shield initiative in 2022, during the caretaker government appointed by President Radev. At the European Council on 15–16 October, Radev held a trilateral meeting with Rutte and Romanian President Nicușor Dan and proposed a moratorium on attacks against commercial shipping in the Black Sea.
Bulgaria is taking large-scale measures to strengthen Black Sea security, including preventive protection of sovereign maritime spaces and tighter control and surveillance by air and sea. Additional air patrols are under way: crews of F-16, MiG-29, Su-25 and L-39 aircraft from the Bulgarian Air Force are conducting surveillance, patrol and reconnaissance over territorial waters, and three unmanned surveillance systems with reconnaissance capabilities have been deployed in the Black Sea.
At an extraordinary meeting of the North Atlantic Council on 20 October 2026, allies expressed solidarity and readiness to support Bulgaria and Romania and sent additional surveillance and reconnaissance forces to the Black Sea, including maritime patrol aircraft, radar systems and drones. In the first hours after the decision, an allied Boeing P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft arrived in Bulgaria and is patrolling the western Black Sea. The joint Bulgaria–Turkey–Romania mine-countermeasures mission surveying sea routes against floating mines also continues; the government describes it as the first joint initiative of its kind by the three NATO coastal states.
Despite bad weather, one of the drone-struck ships was towed to the port of Burgas for a detailed investigation. At the government's invitation, an international expert team with high-technology equipment arrived to establish the type of drones used. Radev said this information matters above all to Bulgarian citizens, who should know who represents them in the European Parliament and how.