MP Peevski gave up his seat in the Constitutional Affairs Committee - there will be only experts in its composition

The leaders of GERB-UDF, “We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria” and Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) on June 28 gathered for a meeting in the National Assembly over the judicial reform and the changes in the Constitution.

After the meeting, MP Delyan Peevski of MRF announced that he was giving up his seat in the Constitutional Affairs Committee, as it would be reconstituted and will not include political figures, but only experts.

BSP leader Kornelia Ninova said that she took the discussion of constitutional changes as not being serious and therefore the socialists would not participate in the talks.

There were also reverberations in Parliament from yesterday's leadership meeting between GERB-UDF and WCC-DB. GERB leader, Boyko Borissov, commented that no consensus was reached during that meeting, but another dividing line was drawn.

Borissov: The meeting with WCC-DB produced another dividing line

"The sooner we forget this meeting, the better. Because it produced nothing. Except for a new dividing line - the pompous event to nominate a mayoral candidate for Sofia months before the elections. Assen Vassilev (of WCC-DB) came, had coffee and went to meet the Ukrainian ambassador. Not a word on the governance programme, because the budget is a reflection of the governance programme. As far as I understood, Mr Vassilev will be in Brussels, he will not be here to defend it these days. We did not discuss it at all. We are only asked to press the button," he said.

For his part, Assen Vassilev pointed out that the leadership meeting was more focused on the work of Parliament and not so much on the work of the cabinet. Kiril Petkov, the other co-chairman of "We Continue the Change", also commented.

"What was understood yesterday is that not all the problems of the country can be solved with one conversation. And we need to introduce the practice of having meetings every week on all important issues. I believe that if we institutionalise this dialogue in this way, we will have much better results from this moment."

Prime Minister, Nikolai Denkov, called for seeking consensus and said that a coalition agreement requires a lot of time, which they do not have.

"Preparing a coalition agreement needs a lot of time - months. We don't have that time. We need to act now and immediately. So the only approach that I have seen working at the moment is the one with consensus seeking. It is not easy, but it works. What needs to be decided is how to secure the legislative programme, without which the whole effort makes no sense. The main tension is over the voting on the bills. There have been several votes that have not been consistent with this assembly of parties that support the government. That is a sign of a problem - they should vote together on the legislative programme."

Tensions in Parliament: WCC-DB asks MRF MP Delyan Peevski to leave the Committee on Constitutional Affairs