site.btaGERB Headed for Another Round of Talks with Four Parties

GERB Headed for
Another Round of Talks
with Four Parties


Sofia, October 20 (BTA) - The election-winning GERB party will 
hold another round of political consultations this week with 
four of the seven parliamentary parties it talked with in the 
first round, GERB Chairman Boyko Borissov announced on Monday. 
It will be negotiating with the Reformist Bloc, the Bulgarian
Socialist Party (BSP), the Patriotic Front and ABV, Borissov
said,  emerging from a three-hour national meeting of GERB which
 was  attended by some 300 party members. The GERB meeting
involved  the party's Executive Committee, MEPs, MPs, mayors and
  grassroots party leaders.

GERB is not planning any further talks with the other three 
parliamentary forces: the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, 
Bulgaria without Censorship, and Ataka, Borissov said.

"The nation has presented us with an equation which even 
mathematicians cannot solve," Borissov said, referring to the 
fact that the new parliament will be fragmented into as many as
 eight groups and that putting together the new government will
 be a tough job. He added, though, that the parties concerned 
must find a solution. "If there is anything worse than having a
 government at all costs, it is having a government of no 
principles," he said.

Borissov said the Reformist Bloc is the only partner of GERB,
regardless of the coalition's internal problems, and noted he is
 firmly in favour of the Bloc's unity.
"We are obliged to reach an agreement with it, particularly
since its leaders have declared that our programmes overlap 90
per cent. I do not see any differences: we share the same views
in the energy sector and the judicial system," Borissov said. He
 added that he is not concerned with whether the Bloc is a
reliable and stable political player and possible partner in the
 country's governance. 

According to Borissov, a coalition between GERB and BSP is not a
 big coalition, but a second round of negotiations between the
two formations are worth it, be it only for an agreement on
individual policies.

Borissov denied that Brussels is instructing him what to do. In
his words, the only advice from the EU is a stable government
and a person to bear responsibility. "At the moment we can offer
 them no such thing," he added.

The GERB leader said that in the morning on October 27 his party
 will hold another meeting where it is expected to become clear
who GERB will be able to govern will, if there are such
political forces. "At 2 pm [next Monday] we will already be in
Parliament, therefore by then the party should have a clear
concept on whether GERB will propose a minority government," he
explained. It is clear that such a minority government cannot be
 formed by just one political force, because this would mean
dependance of GERB on the support of the Movement for Rights and
 Freedoms, which is impossible and unacceptable, Borissov added.