site.btaPrime Minister Glavchev: No Bulgarian Troops Will Be Sent to Ukraine

Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev said that while he is in office, no Bulgarian soldiers will be sent to Ukraine. And NATO has no intention to send troops there. Glavchev said on Tuesday during a Q&A session. livestreamed on Facebook. 

I implement the decisions of the National Assembly, I strictly adhere to them, I do not exceed them at all, I have no such powers and my mandate is voted by the National Assembly regarding Ukraine, he said. He stressed that NATO is a defence organization and not an aggressive alliance. At the NATO summit in Washington it was confirmed that Ukraine will be supported as long as it is necessary, as long as it wants to be supported against Russia's aggression, the Bulgarian prime minister said. He commented that peace should be lasting and sustainable, but on the basis of international law and the UN Charter. That is, Ukraine's territorial integrity should be preserved, its sovereignty and borders should be maintained, Prime Minister Glavchev said. 

Asked why President Rumen Radev did not come to the NATO summit in Washington and whether there was tension between the two, Dimitar Glavchev said that there was no tension between him and the president. "On Monday at the Day of the Diplomatic Service we met with the President, the Vice President, and the Patriarch. We had quite normal talks," the prime minister explained. He added that the question why Radev did not want to lead the delegation at the NATO summit was more to him. "I don't know, there are probably some reasons," the prime minister said.

He recalled his proposal that the National Assembly should say who should lead the delegation, starting from the fact that Glavchev is a caretaker prime minister. "That is why I asked the MPs to express their opinion on the issue - instead of uniting, this divided them," Dimitar Glavchev said and explained that is why he had proposed to the President that the two of them go to Washington together. "And Radev should have been head of the delegation, as he is the commander-in-chief and a NATO general. But I don't know why he didn't accept it, it was his personal decision. If he had any considerations, he could have expressed them," the prime minister further said.

On the issue of a Bulgarian commissioner in the new European Commission, Glavchev said that there are currently no talks on the allocation of portfolios because it is too early. First, Ursula von der Leyen, who has been elected president of the European Commission, will ask for proposals from the member states, then opinions will be probed in talks between the states, Glavchev said. Now the process of forming the commission starts, it is early stage, there is no such conversation yet, he said.