Bulgaria’s political crisis: GERB to meet Reformist Bloc for talks in coming days
Boiko Borissov’s GERB party will meet the Reformist Bloc for talks in coming days in connection with the exploratory mandate handed to the bloc to attempt to put together a government, GERB parliamentary group leader Tsvetan Tsvetanov said on December 14.
The Reformist Bloc has until December 19 to attempt to form a government, and in the event of failure, it will return the mandate that was handed to it by President Rossen Plevneliev on December 13.
Tsvetanov said possible dates for talks were between December 16 and 19.
He said that GERB had to show “the necessary political respect” for the Reformist Bloc because the bloc was the third parliamentary group to receive an exploratory mandate.
GERB and the Bulgarian Socialist Party already have turned down mandates to try to form a government, in the wake of Borissov’s resignation as Prime Minister following his party’s defeat in Bulgaria’s November 2016 presidential elections.
Tsvetanov added that the Reformist Bloc was part of the current governing coalition “and from this perspective we are obliged to take them seriously and hold talks”.
He indicated that there was only a slight chance that a government could be formed.
Reformist Bloc MP Kostadin Markov said that if there was “even a one per cent chance of forming a government within this Parliament, we should try to do it”.
Valeri Simeonov, co-leader of the nationalist Patriotic Front – the only parliamentary group out of eight that has been unequivocally of trying to form an elected government and not go to early parliamentary elections – reiterated that his group would support the Reformist Bloc’s attempts to try to form a government, but under certain conditions.
The Patriotic Front has made public these conditions several times, including significant increases of pensions and minimum salaries.
/Politics
