Sofia ANALYSIS Polit-Barometer GEORGI KARASIMEONOV(EDITOR) Year 18, Issue 1 – January-March 2018 n The political situation in the first months of 2018 was determined to a great extent by the political tension created around the ratification of the Istanbul Convention and the deal with CEZ. These two events moved the focus of public attention away from the start of the rotational Presidency of Bulgaria of the Council of the EU. Despite the po ­litical controversies, the Presidency has been running successfully so far. The govern ­ment has focused its efforts on two main priorities- integration of the Western Bal ­kans into the EU and bringing the relations between the EU and Turkey back to normal. n BSP tried to use the scandals and to harden the tone against the government. The cases with the Istanbul Convention and CEZ were used by the socialists to attack the government. This showed that BSP has the resources and the capability to set the political agenda in its capacity of opposition. At the same time, however, the party risks taking a populist turn if it uses any topic popular for the people in order to create clash ­es with the government and misses the main problems of this country. n GERB was engaged on two fronts: on one hand it had to mitigate the conflicts with its coalition partners, and on the other – to respond to the attacks from the opposition, mainly BSP. The tension between the President of the country and the government becomes more and more apparent. Most likely, it will become even stronger and this will have a negative impact on inter-institutional relations. At this stage, the govern ­ment coalition remains stable and no split is expected to happen imminently.