site.btaUPDATED GERB Leadership Freezes Negotiations with CC-DB

The leadership and the Executive Committee of the GERB party discussed the political situation in the country after the release of a recording, which MP Radostin Vasilev claimed was from a meeting of the National Council of Continue the Change (CC).

GERB-UDF MP Daniel Mitov rendered what he heard in the recording as "cynics discussing different ways to abuse power".

GERB-UDF member Kostadin Angelov pointed out that he expressed his opinion in a post on Facebook and stands by every word. "I listened to the entire recording of over four hours. It contains manifestations of fascism, arrogance, infantilism, backstage, hypocrisy, revanchism, and betrayal. Out of four hours, there is not even one minute about the problems of the people. What disappoints me most, however, is the repeated use of the word 'sell'. CC is discussing how to 'sell' something to the public. Trade and politics have nothing in common!", Angelov wrote on his social media account.

At 5 pm the leadership of GERB and the Executive Committee of the party gave a briefing at GERB headquarters. 

"We are freezing the negotiations", said GERB-UDF prime minister designate Mariya Gabriel. "Everything has its limits. Mine is that I cannot accept democracy built on the basis of lies and shaking the foundations of the state", she added. "I leave aside the lies about my person. That is not the problem. The problem is that here we could be talking about a vision of governance, a way of governing contrary to all European principles and practices", Gabriel stressed.

In her words, it is unacceptable to say one thing during negotiations and another thing after. She added that the CC-DB comments outside the negotiations with GERB-UDF were lies and concluded that the former's word "can no longer be accepted blindly as truth either". Gabriel also stressed that it is unacceptable to treat Bulgaria as a facade, because it is a sovereign state. "We have European and Atlantic partners and I appreciate them because I know that when you defend your position from the outset, with arguments, with transparency, they respect you", she said. "But decisions are made only in Bulgaria. Bulgaria cannot be a facade for impure thoughts, power hunger and a system that replaces the foundations of statehood". 

Gabriel said that she had informed Nikolay Denkov, the CC-DB rotating PM designate, about her decision.

GERB leader Boyko Borissov said that before he heard the leaked recordings he excluded a possibility of them influencing the negotiations because CC co-leader Kiril Petkov said they were recorded by the Bulgarian special services. According to Borissov, recording the headquarters of a political party is the most serious violation in a democracy. "Only it turned out that it was not, and it was a pretext to destroy the services, to remove hundreds of officers," he said, adding that it was about intentions to purge the administration and the services.

Borissov noted that these recordings were leaked just as GERB-UDF and CC-DB were finalizing their negotiations and not earlier. "When we set out to make a government, then they were leaked," Borissov said. "These are unregulated recordings that I would not have paid attention to if they did not show the way CC want to run the country, which startled us," Borissov said. The GERB leader said he would not allow political persecution, illegal arrests and smearing.

Borissov also said that many people in GERB have asked him why he is humiliating the party. "I explain to each one that it is better for the country to have a government, to have a budget, a recovery plan, a eurozone", he added. "We are not pushing to become ministers, none of us want to be there, that is why we talked about an expert government for a few months."

Boyko Borissov said that the CC-DB have significant potential, but instead of uniting efforts with GERB-UDF, the former have chosen to "wring the hands of an entire country". The GERB leader stressed that negotiations will be renewed if a real desire for an expert government, which would lead Bulgaria out of the crisis, is present. Borissov did not exclude a scenario for another parliamentary election. He noted that the question of neither his immunity, nor that of anyone else was raised before.

Borissov added that Parliament was passing important laws at the moment and a lot of work had been done in just a couple of weeks. Now, the issue of the budget must be decided immediately, whether there will be a new budget or an extension of the current budget will be adopted, Borissov said, stressing that it is irresponsible to leave the country in this state.