site.btaContinue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria Does Not Want Elections, Wants to Ensure Reforms Are Completed

Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) does not want to go to new general elections, but also does not want a government without reforms, CC-DB Co-floor Leader Kiril Petkov told journalists on Wednesday.

The National Assembly accepted the resignation of outgoing Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov earlier in the day.

“Currently, he colleagues, part of the [GERB] negotiating team, are abroad, we will wait for them. We, from CC-DB, decided that our negotiating team will consist of the leaders so that there is no delay in the decision and we can adequately have a constructive conversation with a very important goal - not to go to elections,” Petkov explained.

Denkov made an assessment of the outgoing ministers four weeks ago and CC-DB have a very clear idea of the work they have done, Petkov said. He argued that the evaluation of the outgoing government should be very, very high. "For nine months in this difficult environment it has done perfectly," the CC-DB Co-floor Leader added. "We have not seen [Deputy Prime Minister] Mariya Gabriel's assessment yet, we will be happy to see it in the next days because we have delayed that a lot," Petkov noted.

He said that Bulgarians expect free media, no high prices in the stores, as well as logical electricity and gas prices. “

"All Bulgarians expect from us when they go to the store that there are no monopolistic situations with high prices. All Bulgarians expect there to be no electricity prices and the gas price to be illogical. All Bulgarians expect free media", said Kiril Petkov and added: "for these things to come true, the next reforms must become a fact".

“We go in [the negotiations] with the most constructive tone possible, but with a clear and firm position on these reforms. We have no red lines, these are the red lines of society. We will continue to defend these principles, realizing that the stability of the government must be preserved,” Petkov said.

“We have read the document (GERB’s proposal for coalition agreement) and there is a discrepancy between what we proposed and what they have proposed,” Petkov pointed out. But we will try in the coming days to enter into real talks, we will not make requests in the media, because we want to give the negotiations a real chance. There are objective differences that cannot be ignored, he added.

The next prime minister should be named Mariya Gabriel, but necessarily in a way that will enable Bulgarian citizens to feel that the regulators, the judiciary and the services are working for them, the MP underlined.