Tomorrow, the president will hand over the first mandate to form a government to the largest parliamentary group GERB-SDF.
Is this parliament completely exhausted? And how does Bulgaria enter the new year with new international challenges?
From the words of the MEP from GERB/EPP Andrey Novakov, it became clear that the candidate for Prime Minister of GERB-SDF will symbolically go, take the folder with the mandate and immediately return it.
The truth is that in the last 11 months, as much has been achieved as in the last 4 years combined, by caretaker governments. I personally believe that, of course, this carries risks, but in order to get here, there was clearly something that could have been done better. And it was not from GERB – "We entered a government that was clearly a compromise, that mixed oil and water," he commented on bTV and expressed what had been achieved.
„The first thing was that the European institutions stopped talking about the Bulgarian merry-go-round, in which we went from election to election and no one remembered the names of the ministers. Second - there are no more queues at the borders, Bulgaria is in Schengen - we know who made it so that Bulgaria entered this space. Absolutely all the countries that are inside, including the institutions that govern the European Union, congratulated Bulgaria on this bold step. I enjoy watching foreign media, especially our neighbors. Some say „they have overtaken us“, others say, „they will catch up“. This is what happens with such bold reforms. Entering the eurozone, of course, is a shock, it requires efforts from everyone, change, leaving our comfort zone, but it is for the better. Everyone who has entered is growing, getting richer. There is no serious discussion about leaving the eurozone anywhere“, Andrey Novakov pointed out.
Regarding the protests, he said „clearly, something went too far somewhere. With behavior, with a demonstration or something else. But this is another time when every time they explain to us about the dictator who doesn't listen to the people and simply holds power - it collapses, because it is clear that no matter how many people gather, they immediately say “Okay, let's sit down and talk“.
Novakov pointed out that he doesn't see what Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov went too far with, nor Boyko Borisov.
“I have been part of the party since I was 18. I have a lot of elections behind me and I am calm about how GERB will perform, because we have a pretty demanding leader - the kind where, when he tells you, “it is good for Bulgaria to find milk from a chicken“, you ask “fresh or sour“. Many of us are ready to give ourselves away in these elections as well. And I am sure that we will be the first political force. Sociology shows it, our attitude too“, said Andrey Novakov about the upcoming elections and added that he is more concerned with the question “And then what?“.
“In recent days, the National Assembly looked like an MMA report, a clash, jokes… I was a little ashamed of what my colleagues in the European Parliament asked me – how is this possible, how does it happen, because we are used to seeing it in other parliaments - in Latin America, in Africa, somewhere else. This does not suit us“, said MEP Andrey Novakov.