Speaking to reporters here on Tuesday, the Prime Minister Designate of Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB), Nikolay Denkov, said that he expects to talk with Mariya Gabriel of GERB to determine when their formations will sit at the table and discuss the important matters. His statement came shortly after Gabriel told the media that the cabinet-forming negotiations between CC-DB and GERB-UDF are not in an ice age but there is no sunshine to melt the ice between them.
Commenting on Gabriel's words that for the negotiations to continue, CC-DB have to reconsider the government's format and members as well as "the principles and trust", Denkov said that talks should be held to see what this condition of GERB's actually means. "We calmly waited for several days to see what GERB's approach would be," he explained, adding that he somewhat expected this reaction. "What I can say is that talks on such important matters should not be announced in front of the media," he added.
In his words, CC-DB have always said that they would talk with the other political formations, but it is clear that with this configuration of the National Assembly, the most constructive majority can be formed with GERB. That is why the first talks should be held with GERB, because the other talks depend on that, Denkov explained.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Continue the Change co-leader Kiril Petkov commented that Bulgaria needs a regular and pro-European government as soon as possible and a stable National Assembly with a long life. It transpires from his post that he returned to Bulgaria a day earlier from the GLOBSEC Bratislava Forum because of what President Rumen Radev said upon handing CC-DB the second government-forming mandate on Monday.
Handing the mandate to Denkov, the head of State said that the mandate had already been discredited. He also said that as President and Commander-in-Chief, he is directly committed to national security and called to defend the Bulgarian state. "I would like to state here that it is precisely because of this that it is inappropriate on my part to hand you a mandate and to entrust the fate of Bulgaria to the leaders of your party after the leaked recording [from a CC-DB meeting released by CC-DB parliamentary group breakaway Radostin Vasilev on May 26] and the subsequent public confessions for torpedoing Bulgarian sovereignty".
Petkov further writes on Facebook: "We practically saw an attack against the parliamentary republic. No one can dare call for Bulgaria to not have a regular government, no one can put the budget and people's money in the background because of their personal power ambitions."
"We will not allow Bulgaria to quickly head towards Eurasia and to lose its freedom and democracy," he writes. According to Petkov, the real guarantee for democracy are the people in the streets, and "today they will state that the autocratic ambitions will not become a reality, even when the services appointed by the Presidency are using all the resources at their disposal not in defence of national security but in the production of political discrediting materials. We are not afraid and we will not give up," the post reads.
/DS/
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