site.btaUPDATED National Health Insurance Fund Governor, Deputy Governor Resign

The Governor and the Deputy Governor of the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF), Stanimir Mihaylov and Prof Momchil Mavrov, tendered their resignations in the National Assembly on Friday, Parliament's press centre confirmed for BTA. At a joint briefing earlier in the day, GERB leader Boyko Borissov, Democratic Bulgaria co-chair Hristo Ivanov, and Continue the Change co-chair Assen Vassilev said that the NHIF Governor and Deputy Governor would be asked to resign.

The statement came after earlier on Friday, Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov urged GERB to withdraw Deputy Governor Momchil Mavrov from his position over a State Agency National Security report that shows he lobbied for private hospitals. 

Mavrov was nominated by the GERB-UDF parliamentary group and his election on November 30 was also supported by the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF). The MPs of Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria's (CC-DB) voted against. NHIF Governor Stanimir Mihaylov was elected on July 29 after being nominated for the position by CC-DB. 

"In view of the fact that the election of the leadership of the NHIF was flawed, we will ask the Governor and the Deputy Governor to take a step back without any reproach to them so that we can start the procedure again on a clean slate," Borissov, Vassilev and Ivanov told Friday's joint briefing.  The three of them discussed at a meeting the elaboration of a regulation for appointments to the regulatory bodies.

"We had a meeting in connection with yesterday's [November 30] vote, which created a problem, as we have been making an effort from the very beginning not to allow floating majorities. The majority, which supported the Denkov-Gabriel cabinet, should take decisions together on the key issues of governance and the elections of the regulators," Ivanov explained.

"We agreed to start a conversation on a regulation on how the regulators will be elected and filled, which should guarantee the agreement within the parties that support the government. It will take time to agree on the regulation, but the need for it has been confirmed, so we are coming out to you to announce it," he added.

"After yesterday, we all saw that showing muscles in politics leads to us all sinking into a talking shop, we had an hour and a half conversation," Borissov said. "We all decided to take a step back, to ask them to resign and through a regulation on how regulators should be elected from now on, to stop blaming each other," he stated.

Ivanov and Borissov confirmed their support to the cabinet with Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov and Deputy Prime Minister Mariya Gabriel.

Later on Friday, MRF floor leader Delyan Peevski said that representatives of his party attended the meeting between GERB-UDF and CC-DB regarding the issue. "It is reasonable to make this regulation in the parties that support the government and the constitutional majority, we will participate in this thing," Peevski stated. He specified that MRF will participate in the regulation that concerns the constitutional majority and the regulators. "We will not be involved in the government, the executive, either at the level of ministers or deputy ministers," Peevski noted. In response to a question, he said MRF will have people in the regulators, as they have a representative in the Bulgarian National Bank.

The MRF floor leader expressed his party's full support for Deputy Prime Minister Gabriel, while criticizing Prime Minister Denkov: "If he starts working for the people and does reasonable things, we will talk to him."