Bulgaria’s Parliament votes support for Ukraine joining Nato after peace returns to that country
Bulgaria’s National Assembly voted by a large majority on July 6 to approve a declaration that includes a call to the government, at the July Nato Summit in Vilnius, to express support for Ukraine joining Nato after peace is restored in that country.
Of the 214 MPs who voted, 157 – from GERB-UDF, We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, and ITN – were in favour. There were 57 votes against, from Vuzrazhdane and the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP).
The vote coincided with a one-day visit to Sofia by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
The declaration expresses full support for Nato’s Open Doors policy, independent of external factors, and calls for Nato Allies to outline clear parameters on the path to Ukraine’s Nato membership.
The declaration says that Parliament supports the initiation of the planning process and the adoption of specific parameters and a time frame for Ukraine’s membership in the Alliance and expansion of strategic relations.
Parliament’s declaration says that the fastest track to the restoration of peace in Ukraine, the Black Sea region and Europe is Russia’s full and immediate withdrawal beyond the internationally recognised borders of the affected sovereign states.
It calls for an end to nuclear blackmail, as well as to all actions by Russia, which are in sharp contradiction to the United Nations Charter and which represent the most serious blow to the peace and prosperity of both the European and Russian peoples.
The declaration expresses support for Zelenskyy’s Peace Formula, the goal of which is a lasting and just peace.
In order to guarantee Ukraine’s ability to defend itself from the aggressor on its territory, the National Assembly insists that the institutions in Bulgaria continue to provide Ukraine with political, financial, humanitarian, military, military-technical support, until the full restoration of its sovereignty within the internationally recognised borders.
The Nato summit in Vilnius on July 11 and 12 is to be attended by a Bulgarian delegation headed by Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov, who took office on June 6 at the head of a pro-Western government, backed by Parliament’s two largest coalitions, both of which favour a range of support for Ukraine to enable it to defend itself. The government earlier decided that the delegation would be headed by the Prime Minister, so that Bulgarian policy is properly reflected, rather than President Roumen Radev, who disagrees with the pro-Western government’s policies.
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