Commenting the future of the government for the press in Parliament on Thursday, GERB leader Boyko Borissov said that if his party and Continue the Change - Democratic (CC-DB) coalition, GERB's power-sharing partner at the moment, fail to agree on a coalition agreement by March 8, his party would back the resignation of the Nikolay Denkov government and the country would be headed to early elections. Speaking to the press, Borissov offered a detailed schedule, day by day, for how he believes things should play out.
"On March 5, I will present to the [GERB] party a [draft] coalition agreement. On March 6, I will give it to the colleagues in CC-DB to read it. After that we have a congress [of the European People's Party] in Bucharest. By March 8 - by then Denkov and [Deputy Prime Minister] Mariya Gabriel will be ready with the review of the ministers' performance - if they want to discuss a coalition government with a full tenure [of another three years], on all issues, they will have the time during these days to add their comments or revisions. [While I am in Bucharest] I will leave in Sofia a negotiating group and on March 8, if we have a deal, we will proceed as planned. If we don't, we will vote the resignation of Denkov and his government and go to elections. We will try to stay calm as they [CC-DB] campaign," said the GERB leader.
He also said that "this is the path taken by solid European parties of the Establishment".
On February 20, CC-DB unveiled a draft memorandum of agreement with GERB and GERB first rejected it, then said they would consider it but changed their mind again and on February 27 Borissov said that his party is preparing a coalition agreement he would expect CC-DB to sign. CC-DB's answer was that GERB need to show commitment to reforms before they can expect to sign a coalition agreement with them, possibly after some nine months.
Borissov said Thursday that CC-DB have clearly started campaigning for elections and are using Parliament for that.
/VE/
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