In a bTV interview on Thursday afternoon, Bulgarian Vice President Iliana Iotova commented on the revisions to the Constitution that were adopted on Wednesday and on the country's chances of joining the Schengen area.
The Vice President described as "shameful" the way the Constitution was amended. She sees a precedent in the fact that the revisions will be challenged before the Constitutional Court by both parliamentary parties and the President. Iotova pointed out that the draft amendments to the basic law were not submitted to public consultation and citizens were not familiarized with the reasons.
According to the Vice President, it was not right for a Parliament enjoying 8% public support to amend the Constitution so substantially. She asked whether convening a Grand National Assembly would not have been the fairer option if such drastic changes to the Constitution are necessary.
"The problem does not lie in the balance of powers, the problem is called President Rumen Radev and the fear of him, of his popularity, of the fact that people like him and identify him as their own spokesperson," Iotova said further.
Regarding Radev's statement of 2019 in which he argued in favour of allowing dual nationals to run for parliament and president, the Vice President explained that he was referring to native-born Bulgarians who subsequently acquired another citizenship. In her opinion, the provision that was adopted now benefits anyone holding Bulgarian citizenship.
Asked about Austria's proposal to allow Bulgaria's Schengen entry for air travel only, Iotova argued that the purpose is to keep Bulgaria forever outside the full-scale area without border controls because this first step, without any timeframe with reasoning and conditions for lifting the rest of the border controls as well means almost nothing, considering that land crossing is the major problem on Bulgaria's borders.
In the Vice President's opinion, the Cabinet has failed to take advantage of the discontinuance of the Cooperation and Verification Mechanism by the European Commission.
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