site.btaCC-DB: This Parliament Proved Unable to Form Anti-Corruption Majority but It Does not Mean Giving Up All Legislative Initiative

This Parliament, unfortunately, proved unable to form an anti-corruption majority but it does not mean that it must give up all legislative initiative," MP Lena Borislavova (Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria) said here Thursday. She was asked by the press to comment Parliament's plans to take August off from work.

She mentioned one priority for this Parliament to work on, the way her party sees it: addressing the shortage of nurses and health care professionals, and mandating the government to take measures "because the Bulgarian health care system is about to collapse". She said another priority is adopting a bill on individuals' bankruptcy, which Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria are submitting the very same day.

Borislavova also said, "There is reasonable time to campaign and it is not August. Instead of going on vacation, the MPs could work some more and do something.

Asked to comment remarks by Movement for Rights and Freedoms floor leader Delyan Peevski that he is re-submitting to the law-enforcing authorities an alert against Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria over a leaked recording from an online party meeting in May 2023, Borislavova brought up the US and UK sanctions against Peevski for major corruption. "You understand where this attack is coming from: a person sanctioned under the [US] Magnitsky Act. This is the person who personifies the model of the captured state," she added.

Peevski was designated by the US under the Global Magnitsky Act in 2021 as an oligarch who "has regularly been engaged in corruption, using influence peddling and bribes to protect himself from public scrutiny and exert control over key institutions and sectors in Bulgarian society." He is challenging the designation in a US court and his lawyers argue that there is no evidence of any wrongdoing by their client.