I have always defended Bulgaria's interest and not the interest of other countries, President Rumen Radev said on occasion of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's visit to Bulgaria on July 6. "I hope that the Council of Ministers will respect the elementary rules of protocol and that such events will be coordinated in the future," he said.
"The question is whose interests politicians from the Parliament and the government are defending," the President said. According to him, the government does not have its own opinion and its own position, and national responsibility requires that they have one.
Radev explained that when a Prime Minister invites a foreign President, the institutional dialogue requires that this at least be agreed with the President before the invitation itself. The Head of State added that in 2022 he refused to sign a draft declaration of immediate support for Ukraine's NATO membership on the grounds that Ukraine's accession to the Alliance before a lasting peace is established means a war between NATO and Russia. "There was a terrible howl then, and now these fierce critics of mine have suddenly changed their minds and accepted my point," Radev said.
He stressed that the parliamentary forces who are in support of his impeachment have their right to such a position, but should remain responsible towards the Bulgarian people and to the interests of the Bulgarian nation.
According to the President, it is right for the government to justify its claims of unity and transparency by announcing what they plan to give to Ukraine and what their estimates are. "Pouring more weapons increases the risk in this war", Radev said, adding that he is not familiar with the list of arms requested by Zelenskyy, which is currently in the Council of Ministers.
"No matter how much they convince that the arms will be restocked very quickly, this is not true, these processes take years", Radev said on occasion of Parliament's decision to accelerate the process of renewing the departmental wartime stocks.
"They withdrew an important document from Parliament - on the composition of the wartime formations, overlooking the estimates of the military expertise of what weapons and ammunition we need to maintain them", the President explained, adding that currently there is a rapid process of replanning and changing the criteria so that certain weapons and ammunition are released and declared redundant on the basis of new estimates. He urged the government to be very careful because this concerns national security.
"On what grounds did they make this decision in one day, on the basis of which energy strategy, on the basis of what estimates and analyses?" Radev addressed the National Assembly's decision to instruct the energy minister to start negotiations with Ukraine on the sale of the equipment for the Belene nuclear power plant. "Isn't it right for the government to sit down and put on the table all the options for the development of our nuclear energy sector," Radev said.
"Unfortunately, a dark series continues of the Bulgarian PM using foreign media to slander the country, to dangle the Russian threat as a cover for a showdown with state services in the name of personal and partisan interests continues, exactly according to the script in the recording," Radev said regarding a recent interview of Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov for Politico, in which Denkov said that Bulgaria will no longer turn a blind eye to Russian interference.
Regarding the NATO summit in Vilnius, Radev said that the forum will be important and in NATO nobody obliges any country to participate in the provision of arms. He stressed that the importance of the summit comes from the discussions around Ukraine's accession to NATO. Radev added that there are western countries, which are "bigger and more powerful", who say that Ukraine's accession now means a war between NATO and Russia. He stressed that guarantees should be sought for Ukraine's security. "The biggest guarantee is diplomatic efforts for a ceasefire", the President concluded.
/KV/
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