site.btaInterior Minister Suspects Protest Against Euro Aims to Provoke Police

Law enforcement officers are refraining from harsh actions, but if the provocations continue, they will have to take more serious action, Interior Minister Daniel Mitov said in Elhovo on Friday. His comment was in connection with protests in Sofia against the euro and in defence of the Bulgarian currency, the lev.

"My suspicion is that this is what the protesters are aiming for, namely provocations towards the police. They would subsequently exaggerate what happened and get themselves repressed. This will not work,", he emphasized.

Mitov noted that the ongoing protest wave started very badly in February with vandalism and hooliganism in front of the building of the European Parliament and the European Commission in Sofia. He recalled that the topic was subsequently discussed publicly, including during parliamentary question time. "Everyone has the right to protest, but without vandalism, breaking and smashing property, and especially assaulting police officers," the minister stressed.

Mitov and Austria's Federal Minister of the Interior Gerhard Karner attended on Friday the opening of a newly built sensor line at border pyramid 231, in the area of the village of Golyam Dervent.