President Radev meets with third largest parliamentary group

Meeting on Friday with representatives of Vazrazhdane, the third largest parliamentary group, President Rumen Radev said the current situation requires each political force to contribute towards resolving the country's problems. Vazrazhdane has 37 seats in the 240-seat National Assembly.

"Clearly, your representation in Parliament has increased after each election, but so has your responsibility because Bulgaria is faced with a number of challenges. This Parliament must do much of the work left undone by MPs in the past ," Radev said.

Radev reiterated that he expects this Parliament to adopt a 2023 State Budget Act so as to guarantee the country's financial stability.

The President said the scope of law-making would depend on the success or failure of cabinet formation and asked Vazrazhdane about their views on the chances of cabinet formation and Parliament's work.

The party's leader Kostadin Kostadinov said Vazrazhdane had never said they would be in opposition; on the contrary, "we are ready to govern". Asked how long this Parliament could work, he said the budget is the number one priority because its adoption has been much delayed.

The main tasks are, first, to preserve Bulgaria's financial independence, the Bulgarian lev; to be as distanced as possible from the conflict in Ukraine; to start renegotiating Sofia's relations with its EU partners; and to have political stability but not at any cost. Bulgaria is suffering the consequences of a 12-year stable governance by GERB, Kostadinov said.

Regarding the operation of thermal power plants, Radev said caretaker Deputy Prime Minister Atanas Pekanov had not objected to a renegotiation of the deadline for their closure, which is part of the Recovery and Resilience Plan but was sceptical, being aware of the gravity of the issue and Brussels bureaucracy, as well as of how difficult it is to reverse such decisions. The President said intensive talks were underway with the European Commission and he expected to see results by the end of April.

Kostadinov said at the meeting that the caretaker cabinet had failed to reschedule the country’s decarbonization commitments  and that Pekanov was against.

Bulgaria has committed to reduce carbon emissions from electricity generation by 40% by 2026. 

Talking to reporters after the consultation, Kostadinov said Vazrazhdane wants the third mandate, but the choice of its recipient depends entirely on the President. The party leader said the first or the second mandate could be successful, but such a government would not be stable at all and would fall just as Kiril Petkov's government did in June 2022.

On Thursday, Radev met with the two largest parliamentary groups, GERB-UDF (69 MPs), and Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (63 MPs).