Bulgaria on Brexit: A bad day for Europe, a triumph for nationalists and populists
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov and Bulgarian President Rossen Plevneliev both described the UK vote to leave the European Union as a bad day for Europe.
“I deeply regret the Brexit result, that nationalists and populists triumph in the streets of Europe,” Plevneliev said on Twitter, after on June 24 it became clear that the UK had voted by 52 per cent to 48 per cent to leave the EU of which it has been a member for 43 years.
Bulgarian Prime Minister Borissov, speaking to reporters at the National Assembly in Sofia, said that the EU must now show that it can it go on without the UK, that the UK should be left alone to decide their fate “and we can start thinking about Europe without them”.
Borissov said that there should be no talks about special status “because that would break the union”.
Bulgaria would be affected, the EU becomes weaker, “and when it is weaker you see how the markets react, I warned about that, how the pound is falling, in that way there are consequences for everyone”.
Plevneliev, in messages on Twitter, said that Brexit was a clear sign of the unlearnt lessons of the past, a country isolating itself from Europe and closing off its island.
“Today is a bad day for Europe, for European democracies, economy and EU.”
United Europe, with or without the UK, must look ahead, Plevneliev said.
Bulgarian Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov said that the news of the outcome of the June 23 referendum in the UK was cause for deep disappointment.
“For me, it means that the British nation is divided in two,” Mitov said.
The outcome would affect the status of both the EU and the UK, he said.
The Bulgarian government would issue a special position on the results of the referendum.
Mitov said that a domino effect in the EU after the referendum should not be allowed. Mitov said that he was convinced that the EU would emerge stronger from this crisis, but he emphasised the need for new European leaders.
Asked how he would reassure Bulgarians in the UK, Mitov said that they could not help but be worried, but the situation remained to be clarified. There was much procedural work ahead, and the eventual exit of the UK from the EU would take years, Mitov said.
A Tweet by France’s ambassador in Sofia, Xavier Lapeyre De Cabanes, rapidly became popular in retweets and posts on Facebook.
