Good evening and welcome to the first day of this thrilling new week! It all started with consultations for a new government in the President's chambers today. All the parties in Parliament were called in one by one and after a whole day of negotiations, it is still unclear whether we will have a government within the next month. The most likely pretender - the party of showman Slavi Trifonov - kept quiet about its plans.
There is a new Recovery plan: minor differences but big political game
Late on Sunday, on a government website, a new Recovery and Resilience plan suddenly appeared. It was hastily put together and the obvious reason was the push from the anti-government coalition in the new Parliament to review the plan and question ex-Prime Minister Boyko Borissov on it. While an accidentally shared Google Sheet file that was open for comments got all the laughs, there is a slight change in the Plan itself: more money for hydrogen, gas infrastructure and education vouchers for digital skills.Overall, the plan is worth 6.4 billion euro which is 200 million euro on top of the last version. It is supposed to be presented to Brussels by the end of the month.
Bulgarian link confirmed in the Czech-Russian affair of exploding arms depots
Arms dealer Emilyan Gebrev (pictured above), poisoned by the Russian security services in 2015 in Sofia, was allegedly at the center of an undercover operation by Moscow in the Czech Republic. That was announced yesterday by the Prime Minister Andrei Babis, who pointed out that Russian secret agents blew up in 2014 an arms depot containing shipments from Gebrev. According to the Czech authorities, Gebrev imported guns into Ukraine - something he has consistently denied and did so again today.
Democratic Bulgaria deposited a new law proposal: to shut down the specialized court and prosecution service
The right-wing party wants the two institutions closed down on the basis of inefficiency and "negative perception" - the suspicion that they are politically-motivated tools. The court and the prosecution were created 10 years ago and tasked with countering high-level corruption. Yet the only verdict against an acting politician or high-level figure was against a small opposition neighborhood mayor in Sofia. In order for the proposals to be accepted, they have to be voted through by the majority in Parliament, which currently seems to back such a move. Yet it all depends on the timeline of the Parliament which still has to vote in a new government, or dissolve itself.
Good evening and welcome to the first day of this thrilling new week! It all started with consultations for a new government in the President's chambers today. All the parties in Parliament were called in one by one and after a whole day of negotiations, it is still unclear whether we will have a government within the next month. The most likely pretender - the party of showman Slavi Trifonov - kept quiet about its plans.
