Ruling coalition vows to press on in face of boycott by opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party
A meeting on February 19 of the coalition council of Bulgaria’s ruling majority agreed on securing quorums for future sittings in Parliament and issued assurances that the coalition is stable.
The meeting was called by Prime Minister Boiko Borissov after the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party’s national council voted on February 17 to boycott Parliament and said the following day that it would persist in this in spite of the backtrack on Electoral Code amendments by Borissov’s GERB party.
Ahead of the meeting, Ataka party leader Volen Siderov, who heads the parliamentary group of government minority partner the United Patriots, said that his party had no problem attending sittings of Parliament.
Siderov said that quorums could be at risk because of travel by MPs “and they travel a lot”.
“I do not know, GERB should also tighten the ranks because there will be no problem on our side, when there must be a quorum, we even stop all sorts of trips abroad, and so on,” Siderov said.
He said that the coalition would remain stable, whether or not the three parties in the United Patriots stood together in Bulgaria’s May 2019 European Parliament elections.
Deputy Prime Minister Krassimir Karakachanov, a co-leader of the United Patriots, said: “In spite of the differences we have on certain bills, we have one commitment – forming a majority and supporting the government for the rest of the term of office. This was reaffirmed by the coalition council”.
Tsvetan Tsvetanov, parliamentary leader of GERB, said that the BSP had distanced itself from real parliamentarism, from being actively involved in legislative work and parliamentary oversight.
(Photo of the Cabinet building in Sofia: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
