site.btaSocialist Leader Ninova Promises Further Perks, Insists on Peaceful Way Out of Ukraine War

Interviewed on Radio Focus Tuesday morning, Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) leader Korneliya Ninova said that her party targets a “consistent, principles and unswerving continuation of the struggle with the parallel state, backstage deals and assemblages.”

“Everything is tangled in dependencies, public procurements, thefts, conspiracies. This is the network that stifles Bulgaria. This is the mafia that takes away the energy of people and of Bulgaria. And this is the most gruelling battle, because we have been waging it for ten years now, and it has cost us a lot,” the Socialist leader said, specifying that this battle is her “personal cause”.

Ninova claimed credit for perquisites achieved thanks to her party’s efforts: an increased maternity leave benefit, free textbooks, reduced income taxes for young families with children, food vouchers, a minimum wage rise, and an increase of pensions.

The BSP will seek an exemption of people under 26 from the wage income tax so as to be able to get married and have children. They want an elimination of the “money follows the pupil” model in school education and simpler textbooks. The Socialists demand a cessation of the opening of new private hospitals and their even distribution within the national territory. To address the shortage of medical personnel, their training should be State-financed, and schools and universities should be made to enroll as many as are necessary.

Ninova was adamant that the Socialist MEP will be fighting “to the bitter end” for Bulgaria’s admission to land-border Schengen. She argued that the welfare state is compatible with financial stability if thefts, corruption and smuggling are suppressed and the tax revenue compliance rate is increased.

The Socialists insist on a review of the Green Deal. “We can’t be compelled to close down our coal-fired power plants while Germany is reopening its own. We can’t export our coal to Serbia and North Macedonia and import the electricity produced there at high prices while losing jobs in the Maritsa Basin. It is not fair, and it is not right,” the BSP leader argued.

She lashed out against the previous incumbents for scrapping the Belene N-Plant project and “gifting” the reactors to Ukraine.

Ninova is concerned about a risk of an escalation of the war in Ukraine because “human life is the paramount value” and of the disastrous effects on the economy, the energy sector, the social system and incomes. “All efforts must be focused on the search for a peaceful way out of this war,” she said.

Replying to a question, she said that her party had proposed an extraordinary sitting of Parliament to pass a resolution on non-commitment of Bulgarian troops to Ukraine because they do not trust the caretaker Cabinet.

In her words, the permission for Ukraine to use Western weapons to attack Russian territory escalates the war and should not happen. The BSP insist that this issue, too, should be addressed by the National Assembly.