Bulgaria’s Budget revision, CCB situation, ‘not to affect’ timetable for departure of parliament, cabinet
The agreement that Bulgaria’s current national Budget needs to be revised will not affect the timing of the dissolving of Parliament and the resignation of the cabinet, Bulgarian Socialist Party parliamentary group head Atanas Merdzhanov indicated after inter-party consultations were held in Parliament on July 15.
Bulgaria is to hold early national parliamentary elections on October 5, with the 42nd National Assembly due to be dissolved on August 6. No date has been announced for the resignation of the cabinet, but Plamen Oresharski – placed in the prime minister’s chair in the BSP cabinet in May 2013 – has hinted that it could be July 23.
At consultations on July 14 convened by head of state President Rossen Plevneliev, state and government officials and political leaders agreed that the Budget would be revised, as would the budget of the National Health Insurance Fund.
Asked on July 15, after consultations among parliamentary parties on the agenda for the weeks remaining to the current Parliament, whether the Corporate Commercial Bank situation and the NHIF budget revision meant that the life of the cabinet would be prolonged, Merdzhanov said that there would be no need to do so.
Asked when the cabinet’s resignation might be expected, Merdzhanov replied only that Oresharski had spoken on this matter.
Public broadcaster Bulgarian National Radio said that parties in the National Assembly had received assurances that at a meeting on July 16, the cabinet would discuss and adopt proposals to update the NHIF budget as well as the national Budget.
Lyutvi Mestan, leader of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, said after the July 15 consultations that the problems around Corporate Commercial Bank were no reason to extend the life of this parliament and this cabinet.
Tsetska Tsacheva, who represented centre-right opposition GERB at the consultations, said that she was “curious” just when the cabinet would resign.
(Photo of the cabinet building in Sofia: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
