Approached by reporters here on Sunday, Vice President Iliana Iotova commented on the topics of Schengen and the forthcoming rotation in the Government. According to her, the latter will not lead to a radical change in the Cabinet's policy.
In March 2024, Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov of Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) will switch places with Deputy Prime Minister Mariya Gabriel of GERB-UDF. An agreement on this rotation was reached between CC-DB and GERB-UDF before the Cabinet took office in June 2023. Changes in the members of the Government are also expected. The rotation will require that the Cabinet resign and a government-forming procedure be launched.
Commenting on the possibility of Finance Minister Assen Vassilev becoming a second deputy prime minister, Iotova said that, as well as everything else, is some kind of agreement; something traded for this post. "For several days now, Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov has been actively trying to convince us that he will be the one making the decisions - I wish him luck," Iotova noted.
In the forthcoming rotation, the head of State will comply with all of his constitutional powers and rules, as has been done in all consultations preceding the handing of a government-forming mandate, the Vice President underscored. All decisions are taken entirely by the National Assembly, she added.
"I believe that the Council of Ministers, both in its current form and in the one it will potentially have after the rotation, is Team B. On Team A are the parliamentary leaders, some of the heads of parliamentary committees - that is where the decisions are made," Iotova argued. "Thus far, the Council of Ministers has been implementing the decisions according to its capabilities. It is no coincidence that we are yet to learn a large part of the names of the ministers - they have in no way shown that they are taking some decisions," she commented.
In her words, the Council of Ministers was supposed to conduct the negotiations on an exceptionally important decision regarding Schengen, but instead there is a half-decision. According to Iotova, the Government did a second strategic mistake on the path to the border-free area, after the mistake of 2011 when Bulgaria agreed on the political criteria being included in the technical criteria for Schengen membership. Now, the Government agreed that Bulgaria enter Schengen only partially and, from now on, every time even a single illegal migrant has crossed the Bulgarian border, that condition will be raised for Bulgaria's accession by land.
Iovota is pessimistic about Bulgarian joining Schengen by land by the end of 2024. "I read very carefully all the priorities presented by the Belgian EU Presidency, next is the Hungarian EU Presidency. Hungary has a special attitude towards the topic of migration. For me, the mistake was in the content: such a literal overlapping of the Schengen membership criteria with the emigration policy and, most of all, the Dublin Regulation, should not have been allowed," Iotova argued.
Iotova was in Belovo for the marking of 146 years since the area's liberation from Ottoman rule and the Day of Belovo.
/DS/
news.modal.text
