PM Borissov: The country needs consolidation, not division

Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borissov will seek a solution to the political situation after tomorrow's coalition council and after the European Council on Friday and Saturday. He announced this at the beginning of the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers on July 15.

Borissov commented on the protests, the expectations of the people and the disclosed audio recordings of conversations of accused gambling businessman Vassil Bozhkov. He also said he did not know anyone from the Supreme Judicial Council.

Boyko Borissov said he had always been on the side of the protesters and had always supported their fair social and economic demands. He is worried that the division of the nation is so strong at the moment that he does not know how it will be overcome in the coming months, and the economic crisis is coming at a tremendous pace around the world.

Tomorrow morning I will meet with the coalition partners, we will talk about a plan for stability, including with the opposition parties, to agree on what will be done in the remaining months. No one can do it alone, Borissov added.

The prime minister also admitted the possibility of early elections.

There are tools that say how a term of office is terminated and early elections are held, but given the staff in the presidency, so I want to talk a lot about these things with the coalition partners and other parties, that's all I would comment on, he said.

According to Borissov, someone does not want machine voting, because in early elections there will be no machine voting because there will be no such machines. He sees no alternative to the current government and said political instability may escalate into a severe economic crisis if the government is changed. At the same time, he reiterated his support for the specific social demands of the protesters.

I do not blame these people who come with their social demands and my concern is precisely for these people, because their desire for resignation of this government will not improve their situation, the Prime Minister said.

Borissov also outlined a picture of the future of foreign investment in Bulgaria.

"Certainly our big projects are already at risk, because when they see from outside that the country is destabilized, seeing the institutions, everyone will be waiting to see how things will develop," he said.

He also commented on the provocations of last night's protest, when the doors of one of the buildings of the National Assembly were broken and red paint was thrown.

"I feel sorry for the police and the innocent people, you see bombs being thrown among the people and the goal is to spill blood, because they know that if I see blood on the street, I will immediately step down and they know it. That's exactly what they provoked, that's why they were throwing bags of red paint, " he said.

Borissov stressed that on the day of Bulgaria’s admission to the eurozone’s waiting room last Friday, GERB supporters were not in Sofia for a counter-protest, but gathered to celebrate the good news. Regarding the disclosed recordings made by special surveillance devices of conversations of gambling businessman Vassil Bozhkov, he commented that it was completely clear why the businessman said that only Borissov and Goranov were his target.

Because we are now in the banking union and banks cannot go bankrupt and millions cannot be moved abroad without controls, the prime minister said.

In conclusion, he called on people to be alert, because the coronavirus has not passed, and our country from having had a good reputation is now on the red lists of many countries in terms of risk of coronavirus. According to him, we ourselves let it happen.