site.btaOmbudsman Offers to Resign in Deal over Disabled Children Legislation

Sofia, June 21 (BTA) - National Ombudsman Maya Manolova has offered to resign in exchange for adoption of legislation which she argues will help address the problems of disabled children and their parents. The former ranking member of the opposition Socialist party put up this "offer" to the power-holders after a personal care bill tabled by the Ombudsman's team in response to demands for overhaul of the system was rejected earlier this week by the National Council for Integration of Persons with Disabilities.

Reacting to criticism that the proposed bill displayed a piecemeal approach and her own political ambitions, Manolova said: "Well, I donТt have any [ambitions]. If the [high] approval rating of the Ombudsman's office bothers them, I am ready to come down on condition that they solve the [disabled children's] parents' problems."

Manolova's legal initiative also failed to receive the approval of the nationally representative organizations of employers, the trade unions and the Finance Ministry over its inability to contribute to the integration of the nearly 0.5 million people with disabilities in the country. Also, they argued that by focusing on a single social service such as a personal carer, the bill set off against each other people with disabilities.

The Ombudsman said Thursday that she would resign if the competent institutions ensure support in the legislature for the bills which address the problem of the parents and disabled people: on personal care, on social services and on people with disabilities.

She put two of her other legislative initiatives in the package: a bill on private bankruptcy and another one seeking to deal with what she sees as banks' excessive powers.

In a related development, the Socialists in Parliament moved for cancelling Parliament's recess in August so as to give the legislators time to address the problems of disabled people. The secretary of the Socialist group, Filip Popov, told the press that their proposal gives government until the end of July to prepare a bill on social services, on disabled people and on personal care, to move them to Parliament so that they can be debated in August and make it possible to reach a solution.

Popov said that the mothers of disabled children have been holding street protests across the country since the start of June "and it would be profoundly wrong if the MPs, especially those from the ruling majority, to go hit the beaches in Bulgaria or abroad.

The floor leader of the nationalist coalition of the United Patriots, Volen Siderov, said he would back a proposal for cancelling MPs' holiday in August to make time for addressing the situation of disabled people. He said, however, that the MPs deserve some rest as their work goes beyond the plenary votes and much of it remains hidden for ordinary people, leaving them with the impression of indolence.

The power-holding GERB party dismissed the Socialists' proposal as populist and accused the opposition of misusing the demands of one social groups for their political agenda. Speaking for her group, MP Dessislava Atanassova (GERB) said it is an outrage to see this proposal from a group whose leader, Kornelia Ninova, only came to register on Thursday morning to avoid a fine for not attending, and then skipped all plenary votes.

Despite GERB's reaction, the Socialists' proposal will be put to the vote both by the Parliament leadership and by the plenary.