Bulgaria’s President schedules consultations after government submits resignation
Bulgarian head of state President Roumen Radev scheduled two days of consultations with the country’s seven parliamentary groups on June 27 and 28 after Prime Minister Kiril Petkov’s government submitted its resignation following its defeat in a motion of no confidence last week.
The consultations are the first step before Radev begins the process of handing over mandates to seek to form a government. In accordance with the constitution, the first must be handed to the largest parliamentary group, in this case the Kiril Petkov-Assen Vassilev We Continue the Change (WCC) party.
However, matters got off to a false start when Radev scheduled a meeting with WCC for 1pm on June 27, and the group responded that it would not send a delegation because it was busy at a meeting of Parliament’s budget committee.
The other groups scheduled to meet Radev on June 27 were GERB-UDF, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) and the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP).
Radev scheduled meetings with ITN, Democratic Bulgaria and Vuzrazhdane for June 28.
Earlier on June 27, Petkov’s government submitted its resignation to the National Assembly, sending the letter by courier.
Petkov, who is to be his party’s candidate Prime Minister, told Bulgarian National Radio on June 26 that he would negotiate with current coalition government partners the BSP and Democratic Bulgaria, as well as other MPs who, he said, were ready to be independent.
“If we see that no MP is ready to take a step to support our new cabinet, there is no point in delaying,” said Petkov, who said that if this happened, it would be better to hold new elections.
He has ruled out negotiations with GERB leader Boiko Borissov, ITN leader Slavi Trifonov and ITN parliamentary leader Toshko Yordanov, Delyan Peevski and the MRF, and Vuzrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov.
(Photo of Radev: president.bg)
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