site.btaUPDATED Continue the Change Mandates Executive Council to Seal Coalition Deal with Democratic Bulgaria for Snap Election

The National Council of Continue the Change (CC) authorized the party’s Executive Council to conclude a coalition agreement with Democratic Bulgaria for the upcoming snap parliamentary elections, CC Chair Assen Vassilev said here Saturday.

The agreement, to be signed by January 31, will preserve the current proportional representation and allocation of members in precinct election commissions, and the candidate lists used in the October 2024 parliamentary elections. It will also bar the coalition from nominating to the National Assembly any individuals expelled by any of the coalition parties.

The National Council also decided that CC would take part in the snap parliamentary elections with the aim of dismantling the corruption model of a captured State through legislative changes guaranteeing freedom and justice, Vassilev added.

With Bulgaria’s accession to the euro area, the country’s integration into the EU was complete, he said. He added that a debate should now begin on the next major national goal and on where and how Bulgaria should position itself in an increasingly complex international environment. “We want a Bulgaria that is fair, with high incomes, good education, good healthcare and a social system that guarantees there are no working poor and no people who have fulfilled their obligation to the State who are below the poverty line,” Vassilev said.

“The only way for Bulgaria to become prosperous and secure is for the European Union to be able to take care of its security,” Vassilev said. He argued for federalization of the EU, a common army and strong defence that depends on the EU itself. He said the EU was the wealthiest bloc on Earth but did not have an army to defend itself. “If we do not want to be picked apart from the east, west, north and south, the EU must build a common army so it can defend itself,” Vassilev said.

He said it was crucial in the coming elections for Bulgarian citizens to know what kind of Bulgaria they were voting for. He described GERB as “citizens for Eurasian development of Bulgaria” and warned that Bulgaria risked losing part of the funding under the Recovery and Resilience Plan.

On the caretaker prime minister, Vassilev said it was Vice President Iliana Iotova’s prerogative to choose who that would be. “The most important thing a caretaker government must do is hold fair elections,” Vassilev said. He noted that Boyko Rashkov had presented himself as a potential interior minister. “We would support his appointment, but this is a decision of the President and the candidate for [caretaker] Prime Minister, not of the parties,” Vassilev said.

On the possibility of a post-election coalition with former president Rumen Radev, who was President of Bulgaria from 2017 to 2026, Vassilev said Continue the Change had supported Radev when he pursued an anti-corruption policy. “When he began to pursue a policy that ran against Bulgaria’s interests, because Bulgaria’s interest at that moment was for every State to be able to determine its own path rather than foreign tanks entering its territory and telling it which alliances it can and cannot belong to, and what its political and economic future should be, we then made our position clear again,” Vassilev said.