site.bta43rd National Assembly Holds Last Sitting

43rd National Assembly Holds Last Sitting

Sofia, January 26 (BTA) - Bulgaria's 43rd National Assembly held its last sitting on Thursday before being dissolved to clear the way for early parliamentary elections on March 26. "We are leaving but parliamentarism will stay on," the legislature's speaker Tsetska Tsacheva said, and then struck the bell one last time. The MPs posed for a photograph in front of the Parliament building.

Tsacheva said: "We have maintained proper dialogue with civil society. We are the most accessible and the most transparent government institution." She expressed hope that the early elections, made necessary after the cabinet resigned last November, will be fair.

The parliamentary groups read out declarations in the debating chamber.

GERB

The GERB party, which has dominated the outgoing government, is grateful to the other parliamentary groups for the mutual understanding on matters of national interest, despite their political differences, GERB Floor Leader Tsvetan Tsvetanov said. In particular, he thanked the Bulgarian Socialist Party, saying that if it was not for the Socialists' support, the National Assembly would have been unable to pass the most important legislation, including the Judicial Reform Strategy and the amendments to the Constitution.

Tsvetanov made a brief overview of the achievements of the second GERB government and the parliamentary majority which was behind it during its two-year stint in power.

He said that unemployment today stands at 8 per cent and the minimum monthly wage has reached 460 leva. State budget outlays for education have increased by 230 million leva this year. Science and education spending in the new financial programming period will exceed 500 million leva. Some 824 million leva worth of projects have been negotiated in the field of environmental protection.

Russian tourists have come back to Bulgarian resorts, Tsvetanov reported.

Between 2007 and 2009, when Bulgaria was governed by a Socialist-dominated three-party coalition, the country absorbed only 1 per cent of available EU funding, and now the absorption ratio is 7.5 per cent in just two years. The funding negotiated for the new financial programming period is 36 per cent of available money, compared with an EU average of 17 per cent, Tsvetanov said.

Thanks to the good policies of the cabinet and the laws adopted by the National Assembly, left-wing lobbyist legislation in the field of energy has been curbed. The National Electric Company now has more than 1 billion leva in its purse, whereas by the end of the Socialist government in 2014 it had 404 million leva, Tsvetanov said.

BSP-LEFT BULGARIA

The Bulgarian Socialist Party - Left Bulgaria parliamentary group described the performance of the outgoing National Assembly as a fiasco. BSP Chairwoman Kornelia Ninova said what matters most is the assessment which the Bulgarian people have given for the legislature, and that assessment is embarrassingly low: Parliament's approval rating has dropped to 7 per cent.

Ninova observed that the outgoing National Assembly has seen unprincipled political alliances hankering after power and private gains. It is money, and not the people, that has been at the heart of reforms - for example, the pension system reform was aimed simply to wipe out the deficit of the National Social Security Institute, she argued.

In the next National Assembly, BSP-Left Bulgaria will make sure that the policies are centred on an all-out struggle against theft, the mob, and the unfair benefits for the chosen few, Ninova said. Other pillars in the Socialists' policies will be incomes, industry, agriculture, vocational secondary education, and amendments to the School and Pre-school Education Act.

MOVEMENT FOR RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS

Movement for Rights and Freedoms Chairman Moustafa Karadayi called for dialogue between the political parties. He suggested that, instead of stating they cannot work with so-and-so, the parties should make sure they can work together after the elections.

Karadayi noted that divisions in society have deepened over the last two years and hate talk has come to dominate the home scene. More than ever before, society needs to be calmed down and there needs to be concord on important matters, he said.

Karadayi believes all political forces should get united in their will to conduct fair elections. He expects that the people's judgment in the elections will be sober, sensible, and wise.

PATRIOTIC FRONT

The work of the 43rd National Assembly has been very successful, Patriotic Front Co-Chairman Valeri Simeonov said. According to him, the Patriotic Front's primary objective has been to reduce the influence of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms and other parties by keeping them out of power. He also listed the constitutional amendments, the measures against conventional crime, the revisions to the Energy Act and the prevention of an electricity price hike.

But there are also quite a few decisions which the Patriotic Front has been unable to push through, Simeonov admitted. One of them is to raise the minimum monthly pension to 300 leva or at least 200 leva. Another one is to outlaw the preaching of radical Islam. Simeonov's group has also failed to push through legislation to terminate the agreements with the Maritsa East 1 and 3 thermal power plants.