Borissov: Bulgarian coalition agreement geared to stable government

Bulgarian GERB party leader Boiko Borissov, expected to be returned to office as prime minister on May 4, said that in his party’s coalition government agreement with the nationalist United Patriots every effort had been made to clarify all details to ensure a stable government.

Speaking soon after the April 27 signing of the agreement and after accepting a mandate from President Roumen Radev to seek to form a government, Borissov said that who would be in the cabinet had not yet been decided.

Borissov has seven days to present a cabinet or must return the mandate to Radev.

“I can write names on a sheet of paper today, but that’s not serious. It is important to arrange them to work in a team. You have to find energetic people ready to work together,” Borissov said.

“I have the names of the ministers in my head, but when something is done together, until everything has been agreed, nothing has been agreed,” he said.

The coalition agreement between GERB and the United Patriots – a three-party coalition of far-right and nationalist parties that ran third in the March 2017 parliamentary elections – provides for an option to appoint people to the cabinet who come from neither GERB nor the United Patriots.

Borissov highlighted the importance of eliminating fraudulent pensions (an issue that was a keynote in the United Patriots’ election campaign, with the nationalists specifically referring to alleged abuses in the drawing of social security payments by Roma people), and also spoke of money following quality education, reducing administrative burdens, and continuing judicial reform.

According to Borissov, Bulgarians expect that on the first day that the government takes office, “things must start happening”.

He said that ministries would have to work together to achieve the priorities set out in the governance programme.

“It is very important that the Interior Minister, the Health Minister and the Social Minister work together so that what the two parties have described in their programme can be implemented,” Borissov said.

/Politics

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