Scandal before the start of 48th Parliament: Should the Russian Ambassador be invited to the opening ceremony or not?

A week before the opening of the 48th Parliament, representatives of the 7 parties on October 11 gathered at an informal meeting in the National Assembly to discuss how the first parliamentary day would go.

The reason for a serious scandal among them was the question whether the Russian Ambassador Eleonora Mitrofanova should attend the inaugural sitting ceremony, or not. A united position was not reached and therefore the parliamentary administration will now make the decision.

It is an established tradition that all foreign ambassadors to Bulgaria are invited to the first sitting of Parliament. In the BNT programme “More from the Day”, Desislava Atanasova from GERB commented that they had firmly objected to the presence of Russian Ambassador Eleonora Mitrofanova.

"The Russian side is the aggressor in the war with Ukraine and with this understanding we first wanted to provide military assistance to Ukraine. We were the first to invite the Ukrainian Ambassador to our headquarters for a conversation, we were the first to submit a declaration to the 47th National Assembly to declare the Russian state an aggressor, and we categorically do not believe that Ambassador Mitrofanova has a place at the first sitting of the 48th National Assembly," she said.

Atanasova explained that she had not attended the informal meeting today, but she knew that the topic of the potential invitation of the Russian Ambassador was not included in the agenda. GERB's position, in her words, is a matter of value choice. From social media networks she understood that the Bulgarian Socialist Party and "Vazrazhdane" were against this position. Atanasova also answered what will be the behaviour of GERB parliamentary group if Mitrofanova is in the hall next week at the ceremony.

"I think that the Russian Embassy and the Ambassador should read the desire of the political forces in their majority, that her absence would be better in general for the relations between our two countries. Yes, the administration of the Parliament should make the final decision because it has not been constituted yet, but the consistent position of our country in recent months to condemn the aggression of the Russian Federation should be taken into account," Atanasova advised.

"We Continue the Change" is firmly against the presence of Ambassador Mitrofanova, Nastimir Ananiev told BNT.

However, he said that the GERB representative at today's meeting stated that he had no opinion on the subject. Only after the topic became public, GERB issued a statement to the media, the points of which were quoted by Atanasova

"I am shocked someone would announce an anti-Putin coalition and when a clear issue is commented on, because can you imagine in a situation of war the Russian Ambassador being present? When the EU has condemned an aggressor, there is a very clear position towards Russia and sanctions imposed. And the party that claims to be Euro-Atlantic has no position," he said.

We are against the Russian Ambassador attending the opening of the 48th National Assembly.

“Democratic Bulgaria” also opposed the presence of the Russian Ambassador at the meeting. As expected, BSP and "Vazrazhdane" objected to this, saying that such an attitude is unacceptable towards the ambassador of a country with which we have diplomatic relations. MRF and "Bulgaria Ascending" have not said whether they support inviting Mitrofanova or not.