GERB Leader Borisov: I Heard the Protesters’ Message – We Now Have a Good Budget

“I have heard the voice of the protesters; we now have a good budget.” This is what GERB leader Boyko Borisov told journalists in the corridors of Parliament on December 10.

“I was taught to listen to every citizen. I see the citizens at the protest. Whether political parties like each other, whether they have one strategy or another – that is their business. But throughout the years, no one can deny that I have listened to the public. People protest for all sorts of reasons. With the budget we initially put forward, I heard them and we amended it, so I believe this is now a good budget.

We are 20 metres from the finish line – on 1 January we must adopt the euro. GERB entered this government in order to take Bulgaria into the eurozone. And under no circumstances will I agree to compromise this goal before every Bulgarian can withdraw money from a cash machine in euro.

After 1 January, then I will talk about resignations, then I will talk about protests, then I will talk about anything else. This is a geostrategic task, an extremely important one, and I want to see it through to the end. I announced this to all our partners several days ago; they know it, and that is why we will remain united in these days – not out of stubbornness, but until the country enters the eurozone.

What we have achieved – joining Schengen, negotiating the Recovery Plan, securing more than 4 billion leva for the budget, collecting 8.6 billion leva more from customs and tax fraud prevention – are things I am not ashamed of. They are important, complex steps, and they move us along our common path towards the eurozone.

At a time when the world is facing a perfect storm – when the European Commission, our partners Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and our friends in the United States, under the administration of President Trump, are in deep confrontation over Ukraine – the situation is extremely serious. So serious that, as I have just read, US congressmen are even proposing that the United States leave NATO. Such a complicated environment has never existed.

Yet in Bulgaria, parties belonging to the same political families that govern together across Europe are the ones clashing the most here.”