site.btaBulgarian Socialists Call for Debate on Reducing Party Subsidies; Discuss Party Issues

THIS IS AN UPDATED VERSION OF A STORY WHICH BTA RAN ON SATURDAY,
 JUNE 8. THE NEW INFORMATION IS IN THE LAST FOUR PARAGRAPHS.

Sofia, June 9 (BTA) - The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP)
decided in favour of reducing party subsidies but not to one lev
 per valid vote, the party said Saturday in a press release. The
 BSP will propose holding a political debate on the issue.

On Wednesday, the Council of Ministers submitted to Parliament a
 bill to reduce the annual state subsidy for political parties
to 1 lev per valid vote won at the latest parliamentary
elections, from the current 11 leva. The subsidy is available to
 parties which earned more than 1 per cent of the votes at the
latest parliamentary elections. The move comes after TV talk
show host Slavi Trifonov said a month ago that the state
subsidies paid out to parties in 2018 were 6.5 million leva in
excess of the amount that should have been provided, which put
"the price" of a valid vote won at 13.23 leva instead of the
legally established standard of 11 leva.

On Saturday, the BSP National Council approved the position of
the BSP for Bulgaria parliamentary group to not support GERB's
proposal to reduce the party subsidies to 1 lev per valid vote.
Taking into account the strong public opinion against party
subsidies, the BSP National Council ordered the parliamentary
group to begin an expert political debate on reducing the
subsidies, so that they may correspond to public expectations
without jeopardizing the functioning of political parties.

The plenum will also include a discussion of the preparation for
 the BSP Congress on June 16, which should ascertain the
resignation of BSP leader Kornelia Ninova and should decide on
electing a new chairperson.

Atanas Merdzhanov, representative of the so-called "internal
opposition" in BSP, told journalists before the Council session
that the choice of Petar Vitanov as leader of the BSP delegation
 in the European Parliament was an illogical and inappropriate
one. Until now, the delegation used to be led by Party of
European Socialists President Sergei Stanishev.

"This is yet another of a series of illogical political
decisions that were imposed by Kornelia Ninova," Stanishev told
journalists. "I did not hear any arguments in support of the
decision," he noted.

Angel Naidenov, member of the BSP National Council, also found
the choice of Petar Vitanov to be yet another confrontational,
inappropriate and unfounded course of action Kornelia Ninova
took against a part of the BSP and against Sergei Stanishev
himself.

Also on Saturday, outgoing BSP leader Ninova commented on
Stanishev's hint that she could withdraw her resignation at the
BSP Congress on June 16. ("The script has been written,"
Stanishev had remarked.) Ninova said: "Don't ask me about any
'scripts.' I have submitted my resignation. The Congress has an
agenda, it is up to it to decide how we should proceed from now
on."

Reacting to criticism about Vitanov, and not Stanishev, heading
the BSP delegation in the European Parliament, Ninova explained
that the decision was made by the five new MEPs of BSP for
Bulgaria by a secret vote. The BSP Executive Council stayed out
of the matter because it is not supposed to meddle in the MEPs'
work, she said. According to her, Vitanov and Stanishev were the
 only two nominees, and the former was elected by the BSP MEPs
democratically. "Please, don't blame me for that too," Ninova
said.

She noted that at its current plenum the National Council has
not accepted any proposals to amend the BSP Statute or to put
the matter on the agenda of the June 16 Congress.

According to her, the plenum adopted a political report
assessing the results of the European elections and discussing
the preparations for the local elections in the autumn. Many
proposals were made during the discussion on the report. "We
tasked a 17-member commission with supplementing the report
based on the proposals, before it is submitted to the Congress,"
 she said, adding that this was the right way to do it. "I think
 that if I was chosen to write the report, some suspicions about
 the BSP being an authoritarian party, about interference by the
 leader and so on, would have been justified." RY/TH/VE