site.btaIncumbents Urge CC-DB to Help Propel Bulgaria's Full Integration into EU

After the Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) parliamentary group walked out of Wednesday's debate in the National Assembly with the intention to stay out of the planned no-confidence vote against the government, Toma Bikov MP (GERB-UDF) urged them to return to the plenary and to vote against the motion, because, he said, the no-confidence proposal is aimed to stop Bulgaria's full integration into the European Union and perhaps even to start a process of taking Bulgaria out of the European family altogether.

Bikov said: "I hope that the no-confidence vote will give the present government a much broader mandate than the one given to it by the ruling majority as regards foreign policy, because foreign policy should be based on the broadest possible consensus."

The motion was submitted by the Vazrazhdane parliamentary group and is supported by the signatures of 54 MPs of MECh, Velichie and Vazrazhdane.

Bikov said CC-DB's decision not to take part in the vote shows that they have lost their political identity. According to him, CC-DB will sustain political damage from the part of their electorate who believe in Bulgaria's European perspective.

Bikov went on to state: "There is good reason for this debate, because the pro-Europe consensus, which emerged in the 1990s as both public and political consensus, is no longer as strong as it used to be. There are groups of people in Bulgarian society who are not just unhappy with certain policies in the EU but are opposed to Bulgaria's EU membership. The no-confidence motion is an expression of this tendency. Maybe it is time to open a discussion not only about what we think of one EU policy or another, but whether Bulgaria belongs in the EU in the first place."

"We see that those who are against Bulgaria's EU membership are able to unite, but we, who are in favour of Bulgaria's EU membership, are obviously unable to do it, which, incidentally, is the bigger risk for the European perspective of Bulgaria." Bikov noted that Bulgaria's European perspective is a fact thanks to the nation's efforts, not the efforts of the West.