site.btaGERB Leader Borissov: Ministers Refusing to Participate in Government in Violation of Agreement

The ministers' declarations of refusal to participate in the government presented on Tuesday are in violation of the agreement that these offices will work in rotation for 18 months, GERB leader Boyko Borissov told a briefing at the National Assembly.

The proposed cabinet was not agreed on with Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB), a significant number of the nominees for ministers did not agree to participate in this cabinet, said outgoing Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov on Tuesday.

It is very difficult to get the party to go back on this, said Boyko Borissov.

The first thing that can bring GERB back to negotiations would be an apology, especially to Prime Minister-designate Gabriel, said Borissov. "There is a way back, but it goes through whether Maria Gabriel will accept their apologies, and I will have a difficult conversation with the group to see if they will accept the apologies," Borisov said. "If we don't get an apology, they don't have 69 votes," he said. 

"We have a document that says that these ministers will be in their positions for 18 months and can only be replaced by a decision of Denkov and Gabriel, and their memorandum states that they can be replaced only with a veto from both sides," commented Borissov. 

The GERB leader explained that he does not want to attend a meeting with the leaders of the CC-DB because, in his words, they are behaving badly. "If you attend a meeting where Kiril Petkov breaks bottles and glasses on the table, will you want to attend any more leadership meetings," he said. 

"A month ago, Kiril Petkov and I talked about the changes in the cabinet," noted Borisov. "We did agree on two things - a deadline for changing investigative services and disclosure of investigative secrecy," he explained, noting that they did not agree on a deadline, because the services were well integrated with international partners. The only dispute was about Defence Minister Todor Tagarev, he noted. 

Borissov added that he has always said supported Hristo Ivanov's constitutional reform. "Yesterday, when they [CC-DB] called on the President to withdraw the decree, I realized that they don't even know what we were doing, because the President issues a decree only for the prime minister, and until a vote on the composition of a government is added to the National Assembly agenda, 100% of the ministers can be replaced," Borisov explained.

He stressed that CC-DB clearly aim for snap elections, and wanted GERB and to hand over an empty folder.