Bulgaria's informal ruling coalition between the center-right GERB party and the nationalists from Ataka has seen serious cracks as the latter party declared itself strongly against Turkey's EU membership.

After on Wednesday the Bulgarian Parliament – with the votes of the ruling party GERB and the opposition ethnic Turkish party DPS (Movement for Rights and Freedoms) – decided not to hold a vote on whether to schedule a referendum on Turkey's EU membership, the Ataka leader Volen Siderov threatened to back out his party's support for the Borisov Cabinet.

The referendum on Turkey's EU accession has been long demanded by Ataka and by another nationalist formation, the more marginal VMRO party, which is actually at odds with the most popular nationalist formation Ataka.

"We are not going to support GERB unconditionally any more, and we will discuss cautiously every single political move from now on. Unlike all other parties, Ataka does not want high posts, it remains loyal to the Bulgarian national interest," Siderov told a rally of several hundred people in the city of Plovdiv Wednesday night entitled "No to Turkey's EU Membership", after earlier he and his parliamentary group left the Parliament in protest demanding a vote to schedule a referendum.

"When Bulgaria's interest starts to differ from those of the ruling party, Ataka will choose Bulgaria. If you don't do the same thing, you will lose power, and then Ataka will rise to power," Siderov warned Borisov's party GERB.

The Ataka leadership has been hinting several times in the past few weeks that it can withdraw its support for the Borisov government because of the latter's unwillingness to commit to a strong position against Turkey's EU membership.

After a visit of Turkish PM Erdogan to Sofia in early October, at which Bulgarian PM Borisov declared principled support fro Turkey's EU accession, the nationalists from Ataka showed up in Parliament with special T-shirts saying "No to Turkey in the EU", and warned that the issue could cause problems between them and GERB.

"I presented the Prime Minister with my trust in the name of his ambition – the things that he is showing he wants to do for Bulgaria. But I am starting to ask, "Are we going in the right direction?", stated Siderov, who is well-known for being an eloquent public speaker capable of magnifying mass street rallies.

He insisted that no Turkish state leader should be allowed to visit Bulgaria until Turkey apologized and paid a compensation of USD 10 B to the descendants of the Bulgarian refugees who fled Ottoman Turkish repressions in Eastern Thrace (today's European Turkey) in 1913-1925, for properties they left behind. Ataka, VMRO, and other Bulgarian organizations have based these claims on a Bulgarian-Turkish Treaty signed in Ankara in 1925.

During the recent visit of Turkey's PM Erdogan to Bulgaria, Bulgarian PM Borisov said he kept urging the descendants of the refugees to provide documents for their property claims in Turkey, but none had done so to date. At the same time Erdogan promised any legal claims will be settled fairly.

Siderov's Ataka (meaning "Attack") party has been the one unconditional and staunch backer of the minority government of GERB and PM Borisov. GERB has only 117 MPs in Parliament, 4 short of a majority, while Ataka has 21 MPs. The center-right Blue Coalition, with 14 MPs, has been a more reluctant ally to Borisov's GERB, criticizing the government on numerous occasions.

It is unclear whether Ataka's potential official withdrawal of support for the Borisov government would bring it down as GERB made no formal coalition agreements when it formed the Cabinet back in 2009, with Borisov insisting that he wanted to assume the full responsibility for the government of the country.

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