site.btaUPDATED MRF Floor Leader Alerts Interior Ministry, National Security Agency about Team of EU-Banned Russian TV Channel Working in Bulgaria

Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) floor leader Delyan Peevski has alerted Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov and State Agency for National Security (SANS) Chair Plamen Tonchev that they should immediately establish how a team of the Russian television channel Rossiya 1, whose broadcasting activities and licences have been suspended by the EU, was allowed to work in Bulgaria, the MRF said. Former Bulgarian ambassador to Russia Ilian Vassilev and media outlets have reported that Rossiya 1 has released YouTube content filmed in downtown Sofia.

Peevski said he viewed broadcasts from central Sofia filmed by a team of a media outlet whose broadcasts are banned in the EU as a provocation to the rule of law and the upholding of European values and sanctions against Russia. He recalled that Russia had declared Bulgaria an unfriendly country and expelled a Bulgarian National Radio correspondent in Moscow two months ago.

The MRF floor leader said that a slack response to such provocations sends a bad signal to Bulgaria's Euro-Atlantic partners, adding that it puts public order at risk from hybrid attacks and threatens this country's security and sovereignty.

According to the EU's sixth package of sanctions against Russia, the broadcasting suspension and licence revocation does not include a ban on carrying out certain work activities on European territory. In line with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, those measures do not prevent the media outlets and their staff from carrying out activities in the Union other than broadcasting, such as research and interviews.

Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov told a briefing later on Thursday that the EU had banned the broadcasting of Rossiya 1, but there is no ban on the activities of the journalists of the media outlet, thus the activities are not sanctioned. He said that the state will look carefully at whether what the Russian journalist has done goes beyond what is acceptable for Bulgaria and its national security. 

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Mariya Gabriel said that her Ministry had nothing to do with the case of the Russian journalists in Bulgaria. She said that the Ministry is waiting for a full report from SANS.

Gabriel said that according to preliminary information, a visa was granted by another member state and was used to enter the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria "with two other European citizens for whom there is no way that any sanctions regime could apply".