Bulgaria MPs Trade 'Meatball' Accusations over Budget Debate Violations

The Bulgarian parliamentary chamber, where a fierce row broke out on Wednesday, about the lack of debate of the Draft State Budget 2010 one day before. Photo by BGNES

A huge row has erupted in the Bulgarian Parliament on Wednesday, with MPs trading accusations and insults at their opponents, and criticizing the Speaker for her conduct.

This was in reaction to Tuesday’s debate of the draft state budget for 2010, presented by the ruling party GERB. The 2010 State Budget Act had been passed with minimal debate, as Novinite.com reported.

According to GERB and its supporting parties, the lack of debate was because of the absence from the plenary session of the opposition and its leaders, Sergey Stanishev for the Bulgarian Socialist party (BSP) and Ahmed Dogan for the Movement for Rights and Freedoms party (DPS).

The opposition parties complained that parliamentary tradition and protocol were not observed, accusing the Speaker, Tsetska Tsacheva of failing to make a list of MPs who wished to speak following the government’s budget presentation.

At the beginning of Wednesday’s session, Lyutvi Mestan, DPS Deputy Chair, declared that he had handed in a written request to the Speaker, listing three MPs from his party who would speak on the budget issue.

He reminded Parliament that a request to speak is made, either by raising a hand, or by submitting a request in writing. He accused the Speaker of failing to observe the second procedure, with a resulting lack of debate. He said that he was making this point so that the situation would not arise in future.

Tsacheva defended her position, saying it was clear from reviewing the TV coverage of Tuesday’s proceedings that the National Assembly officials had tried a few times to urge MPs to participate in the debate. According to her, only DPS had handed in a written request, but when she had opened the discussion, they were not present in the chamber.

For his part, Ivan Kostov, Co-Chair of the Blue coalition, condemned the lack of debate as a “blemish” on the reputation of the National Assembly.

“I agree that the Speaker of Parliament did everything possible to provoke a debate, it was opened, there were speeches both by representatives of the government and by chairs of the Parliamentary Commissions,” he said, adding that “the leaders of the opposition parties were absent - that is why there was no debate.”

In an animated exchange, the BSP Deputy Chair, Angel Naidenov, blamed the ruling GERB party, stating that they had "created one of the greatest gaffes in the contemporary parliamentary history of Bulgaria".

Iskra Fidosova, GERB Co-Chair retorted that the "gaffe was not ours, it was yours".

“By not admitting the gaffe it does not exist, but you're fooling yourselves,” stated Naidenov, adding that they (BSP) had boycotted the debate.

Fidosova repeated: "The gaffe is not ours it's yours,” adding “because yesterday, when the debate was supposed to take place, our colleagues from BSP and DPS were downstairs in the canteen eating meatballs.”

This provoked Yane Yanev, leader of conservative party RZS; objected to these words, saying that "parliamentarianism is lowered to a kitchen debate and reading of cookery recipes from the parliamentary rostrum".

Yanev reminded MPs of the biggest gaffe that the previous Parliament had started with - the unsuccessful election of Sergei Stanishev for PM, and how he was sworn in at his first unsuccessful attempt to form a government.

Volen Siderov, the Ataka leader, who was abroad on Tuesday, had watched the proceedings on TV, as an ordinary viewer would have.

"This picture tells me what is happening here - I both want to speak and I don't know what exactly I want to say so I won't do it", said Siderov.

According to him, the BSP was avoiding responsibility and this was typical of their record throughout the years. He suggested that, if they had come out and debated the issue, they would have had to say where the missing billions were, asking why Plamen Oresharski had not appeared to defend his position as the previous Finance Minister.

The leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), Sergey Stanishev, had several days earlier condemned the draft as a “poverty budget”, one that would lead to rising unemployment, bankrupt municipalities and a high level of poverty.

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