site.btaGERB Holds Extraordinary Extended Meeting of Its Executive Commission in Wake of Bulgarian Socialist Party Congress

Sofia, October 29 (BTA) - On Sunday GERB, the leading party in the ruling coalition, held an extraordinary extended meeting of its Executive Commission, called by party leader and Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, GERB said in a press release. The meeting, called in the wake of the congress of the Bulgarian Socialist Party on Saturday, was attended by the members of the Executive Commission, cabinet ministers and GERB MPs.

Speaking at a news conference after the meeting, GERB floor leader Tsvetan Tsvetanov said that Bulgaria is ready to take over the EU Presidency which rotates to the country on January 1, 2018. Tsvetanov said that the meeting and the ensuing news conference were called "to respond to BSP's lies and manipulations." The GERB official urged the BSP not to do bad publicity on GERB's back.

Tsvetanov said that the priorities of Bulgaria's EU Presidency have been identified and are already being implemented. Minister in charge of the Bulgarian EU Presidency Liliyana Pavlova said that "everything indicated as priorities of the EU Presidency is one-to-one what had been proposed by the BSP". She asked if the BSP "are lying, manipulating, copying or not reading". Pavlova reiterated that the topic of the Bulgarian EU Presidency is supra-party and a responsibility of all. In her words, the attempts of party HQs and congresses to play with the issue is "ugly, undignified" and has the sole intention of damaging Bulgaria's reputation.

Pavlova said that the Western Balkans became a topic of the Europe's agenda exactly on account of the policy of the Bulgarian government. Tsvetanov said that Bulgaria is part of strong and united Europe, and that the Western Balkans need a European perspective.

The GERB floor leader said also that at its forthcoming congress GERB will issue a political statement that the party will never govern together with the BSP. He said that the intention of proposing the position of chair of the incumbent National Assembly to the BSP had been to show statesman-like conduct, and not to "tame the opposition". Tsvetanov responded to statements made at BSP's Sunday congress that GERB was trying to divide, weaken and tame the opposition. "We want strong opposition but we are seeing how this has become savage opposition," Tsvetanov said, adding that with their approach the BSP can only divide the nation, ruin the institutions and people's trust.

In a statement issued prior to the meeting, GERB said that "the crude non-truths uttered by the BSP leaders and Socialist MPs about GERB constitute the most aggressive form of hate speech".