site.btaGERB Leader Borissov Comments Proposed Anti-Corruption Commission Dissolution

GERB leader Boyko Borissov said that a decision must soon be made regarding the future of the Counter-Corruption Commission, as debates intensify over its role and potential dissolution. “We’ll have to come together and decide,” Borissov told reporters in Burgas on Saturday.

“Now everyone sees the damage caused by the monster that Kiril Petkov and Asen Vassilev created back then to crush their opponents. And now we have to save it because of the [Recovery] Plan—or lose EUR 5 billion,” he said, referring to Bulgaria’s access to EU funding under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.

Borissov claimed that GERB’s success in leading Bulgaria into Schengen and securing entry into the eurozone has unsettled the party’s political rivals. “This particularly irritates Continue the Change (CC), but this time, I can’t distinguish them from Democratic Bulgaria (DB), since General Atanas Atanasov has now also called for the Commission to be shut down,” he said.

According to Borissov, the CPC had been politically useful to CC and DB in recent weeks, as they blamed their shortcomings on the claim that the Commission was controlled by Delyan Peevski.

“Now that Peevski has sent an open letter pledging to support the dissolution of the Commission, GERB, There Is Such a People (ITN), and the Bulgarian Socialist Party – United Left find themselves in the minority with around 100 MPs,” Borissov added. “At the request of CC and DB, and by Constitutional Court decision, the threshold for passing such legislation now requires 125 votes, and we no longer have that majority.”