Boyko Borissov: The Government Will Not Resign — The Protest Did a Splendid Job

The government will not resign, GERB leader Boyko Borissov said on December 3 in the corridors of the Parliament.

He stressed that the protest had “done a splendid job”.

“First, I want to separate the protest into two parts and congratulate those who took part in the first stage — they truly did a splendid job. The second stage is a completely different matter, and I think everyone has realised what sort of people would like to govern the country afterwards. The protest was announced as being against the budget. From the very first day, everyone in GERB who spoke to you has said that this is a bad budget — a compromise, a coalition budget — and not one of us wanted to defend it. This protest was extremely useful for us because colleagues, partners, employers and trade unions all brought the discussion back to the point where it should have been a month or a month and a half ago. Yesterday I had more than a hundred conversations — I met friends and asked them, ‘What are you doing at this protest?’ They replied, ‘Well, aren’t you against this budget too?’ GERB is a 19-year-old party — today is our birthday — and everything good done in Sofia since 1990 has been done by GERB: the metro, the boulevards, the road breakthroughs. The protest was authorised in one place, but then it turned into a procession, deliberately moving through side streets so that all the local groups could join — alongside the first wave of normal, democratic protesters.”

Borissov added that balancing the budget would require cuts to capital expenditure.

“All the problematic areas in the budget have been resolved. I specifically asked — and I am grateful that both trade unions and employers agreed — that all discussions on the budget be public. Now, to balance the budget, we are once again cutting capital spending.”

Asked whether Minister of Interior, Daniel Mitov, would resign, Borissov replied:

“I am firmly against it, because this time the police did their job very well, he said and added that the vandalism at the protest was organised.

Asked whether the government would resign, the GERB leader said:

“Absolutely not. The opposition suddenly decided to distance themselves from us, yet everything that has happened in recent years happened during the 'assemblage' (Ed. Note: the word frequently used to refer to the cooperation between the power holders - WCC-DB and GERB-UDF - in the then government from June 2023 to March 2024, with Nikolay Denkov as PM). I watched Mr Atanasov on Panorama — he accused us of making Denkov Prime Minister and of the fact that Bulgaria did not receive a single euro from the Recovery Plan for three years. When there is a protest on their behalf — we are the villains; when they were in power — we were the good ones and we were supposedly all in it together. I don’t understand this. Yesterday over 3.2 billion leva came into Bulgaria — thanks to the fight against customs contraband and VAT fraud. This year the Revenue Agency and Customs have collected over 8.6 billion leva more. And for this the government should resign? If I were alone — I’d resign immediately, 100%. But that would discredit GERB as a partner who, after signing an agreement, cannot simply turn back. If the government falls now, the next 3–4 months will be complete chaos, because you know how caretaker governments operate. Prices in the shops and in every sector will skyrocket. This would damage the adoption of the euro so severely that we might become the first country where the next government wants to withdraw from the eurozone. Yes, it is a given — as long as GERB is there. It is no coincidence that a convergence report has not been requested all these years.”

Borissov warned that the first six months to a year after Bulgaria adopts the euro will be critical.

“If we do not want to discredit this process, we must be absolutely united — those of us who want Bulgaria in the eurozone.”