site.btaParliament Debates No-confidence Motion against Denkov Cabinet, PM Says Debate Undermined National Security

Parliament debated Wednesday a motion of no confidence in the government over its “inability to guarantee national security and the country's defence". The motion was submitted on November 8 by the BSP for Bulgaria, Vazrazhdane and There Is Such a People (TISP) parliamentary groups. 

The Socialists also included some energy issue in their reasoning for the motion, for which the Energy Minister provided details on what the government is doing in the nuclear power energy sector.

Taking the floor after the parties were done debating, Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov said that the motion undermined national security. 

As he was speaking, the MPs of the euro-skeptic and anti-NATO Vazrazhdane party sat with their backs turned to the rostrum. After he finished speaking, they started chanting "Resign!".

The government positions were also defended by the Ministers of Defence, the Interior and Energy, as well as by Continue the Change co-leader Kiril Petkov.

GERB and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms did not speak during the debate and left the government to its own devices and to Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria to do the talking. Their leaders said, though, that the motion was meaningless, plus they have said earlier that they would not back the motion.

The debate lasted nearly four hours.

Parliament will take a vote on the motion of no confidence  at 1:55 p.m. on Thursday.

It is the second motion of no-confidence against the Denkov Cabinet. The first was over its energy policy, was tabled by Vazrazhdane, BSP for Bulgaria, TISP and Independent MP Radostin Vasilev, and was rejected at an extraordinary Parliament sitting on October 13. 

Kristian Vigenin of BSP for Bulgaria read out the reasoning for the no-confidence motion, according to which the decisions in the field of security and defence are taken in service of foreign economic and political interests and not on the basis of actual needs. These decisions put the country and its citizens at increasing security risks, the reasoning reads.

The motion’s sponsors criticize the Government’s commitment to the provision to Ukraine of significant quantities of ammunition, a huge number of armored vehicles, and an unspecified number of C-300 missiles, thus reducing the Bulgarian Army’s combat capability and the capabilities to defend Sofia and critical infrastructure sites. Bulgaria is still waiting for the delivery of eight F-16 fighter jets it has paid for, and is already paying for another eight. The process for the purchase of nearly 200 combat and service vehicles from the US worth billions has been sped up without taking into consideration today’s biggest risks that require investment in Land Forces and air defence simultaneously. The purchase of Stryker vehicles that are no longer being produced in the US is linked to future logistics problems, the motion reads.

Following is a takeaway from the debate.

Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov: The debate showed that the truth does not matter for those who submitted the motion, and they only used the opportunity to hurl propaganda, lies and insults. The opposition once again offered no sound arguments but only lies and fabrications. 

On this issue we should seek a national consensus, which should be centred first on the modernization of the Bulgarian Armed Forces and on our complete integration into the European and Euro-Atlantic structures. All other actions, including this attempt for a vote of no confidence, undermine our national security in a complex and risky external environment. 

A year and nine months after the war in Ukraine began, the sponsors of the no-confidence vote from the parliamentary groups of Vazrazhdane, BSP for Bulgaria and TISP finally admitted in their reasoning that Russia is waging an aggressive war against Ukraine.

Now all parliamentary parties admit that the war in Ukraine creates risks for Bulgaria, thus if Russia stops the war in Ukraine then the risks for Bulgaria's national security will also disappear. For this reason, Bulgaria's national security requires all parties, without exception, including the opposition parties, to call on Russia to stop the war and leave the captured territories in accordance with international law. This is Bulgaria's interest. This corresponds to Bulgaria's national security.

Defence Minister Todor Tagarev: Bulgarian's support for Ukraine is in keeping with this country's strategic interest. By defending itself, Ukraine is defending Europe against the Kremlin. If Ukraine loses, be prepared to at least double the resources Bulgaria needs for defence. 

At the time the Russian invasion began, the Bulgarian community in Ukraine was estimated to number about 230,000. Most of them live in Odesa, Izmail and other areas of southern Ukraine which are targeted by constant drone strikes. Many ethnic Bulgarians joined Ukraine's armed forces, some of them died for their homeland. I remember how in the first days of the military aggression, the entire leadership of the Bulgarian Socialist Party called on us to help ethnic Bulgarians [in Ukraine]. That is exactly what we are doing. But the situation is even worse for the Taurian Bulgarians who live in Zaporizhzhya region and closer to the Sea of Azov. Before the large-scale aggression they numbered some 37,000 and after the Russian invasion about half of them have fled the temporarily occupied territories and 15% are now refugees in other countries. Russians from Russia and Central Asia have moved in the abandoned apartments and houses. The local Bulgarian population have had their land and produce confiscated. The Bulgarian schools in the occupied settlements have been closed and the Russian authorities have re-registered them as Russian schools, with teaching in Russian. The Ukrainian-Bulgarian Lyceum is closed and converted into a Russian educational institution. The Russian military forcibly enrolled Taurian Bulgarians in Russian schools and subject them to indoctrination. The Russian authorities have closed Bulgarian community centers and societies and stationed Russian soldiers in them. Only Russian cameramen work on the Internet, television is only in Russian. Bulgarian-language broadcasts have been shut down. This is impacting directly the Bulgarian national interest. 

Peace can only be restored when Putin's authoritarian regime is defeated. It is with this understanding that Bulgaria has joined the common Allied policies to provide military assistance to Ukraine, and we do so in accordance with their stated needs, your decisions [in Parliament], and in keeping with the standards for maintaining the stocks of arms and ammunition for the needs of the Bulgarian Armed Forces

Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov: The allegations about Taurian Bulgarians are a lie, Tagarev is a Ukrainian servant and should step down. There is video evidence of how Bulgarians in Ukraine are being forcibly mobilized. 

There are 20,000 Ukrainians in Bulgaria at the moment, who are fit to military service. Instead of sending them back home in Ukraine, our government, who claims to be very concerned about Ukraine, has put them up in Bulgarian hotels as they drive their refugee SUVs. 

Kiril Petkov, Continue the Change: The Bulgarian defence strategy is to modernize the Bulgarian army with 21st century technology. Defence based on old Russian machines can only evoke nostalgia in some people but their combat capability is many times worse than the technologies the Bulgarian government is acquiring under its modernization strategy. Even though the debate revolved around how expensive modernization is, it can spare thousands of lives. The Bulgarian Armed Forces deserve the best defence technology, and the Air and Land Forces should be modernized simultaneously. Bulgaria must ensure interoperability with its NATO allies. 

Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov: There are no signs of a migrant wave moving towards Bulgaria in the wake of the Gaza conflict. Last spring and early summer we had some 1,500 attempts [per day] for trespassing the Bulgarian-Turkish border but thanks to our actions and beefing up security by 30%, as well as the intense dialogue with the Turkish side, in the past couple of months - September and October, which were the worst for illegal migration in past years - we had no more than 300-400 trespassing attempts at the same border [per day].

Trespassing attempts at the Bulgarian-Turkish border totaled 174,000 between January and November 2023; 1,430 were caught on their way into the country, which is 32% fewer than this time in 2022, and 2,246 were caught on their way out of the country, which was 45% fewer than this time last year. 

Massive repairs are being done on the fence along the Bulgarian-Turkish border after the government provided funding of BGN 5 million leva. 

The Ministry team has never stopped working for improving the capacity of the Border Police and hire more people. 

Socialist leader Korneliya Ninova: The country needs a non-partisan fixed-term programmatic government as an exit from the current situation. There is still a chance to rescue Bulgaria from this hole you put it into, and this involves resignation of the Denkov Cabinet and new, dwift and bold statesmanly decisions. 

The local elections on October 29 and November 5 were the real no-confidence vote against the Denkov Cabinet because the power-holding parties lost there half-a-million votes. 

There Is Such a People (TISP) floor leader Toshko Yordanov: The Cabinet never presented a strategic vision for the changes in the security services or the steps they plan to take. That makes me think that they don't know what exactly it is they want to change, which means legal and governance incompetence.

In both bills for revisions in the security services put forward by the power-holders, the only thing that changes is how the leaders of the State Intelligence Agency and the State Agency for National Security (SANS) are appointed. By sending his request for the removal of the SANS head, the Prime Minister confirmed that by reforms of the services he meant only the change of the chairmen of some services.