Bulgarian MPs Reject Proposal for Limiting Sanctions Against Russia

The Bulgarian Parliament rejected on Wednesday to include the proposal, which calls for limiting the extension of sanctions against Russia, for discussion in its weekly agenda.

The proposal of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) was first rejected by the parliamentary Foreign Policy Committee on January 21, daily Dnevnik reports.

Last week only the oppositional BSP and its splinter party, which currently supports the coalition government - Alternative for Bulgarian Revival (ABV) voted in favour of the proposal, while the nationalists from Ataka did not participate in the voting.

Following the initial rejection, BSP suggested that the proposal should be discussed this week, prior to the extraordinary meeting of the European Union (EU) foreign affairs ministers.

On Wednesday 66 MPs voted in favour of including the proposal in this week's parliamentary agenda, 76 voted against, while 34 abstained.

Former Foreign Affairs Minister and incumbent MP from BSP Kristian Vigenin pointed that the sanctions against Russia had not achieved the desired results.

According to Vigenin, the sanctions have led to the contrary – deepening of the conflict, the absence of dialogue and the suffering of economic losses by all sides.

Earlier on Wednesday, Parliament rejected the request of Ataka's leader Volen Siderov to hold a hearing of Bulgaria's PM Boyko Borisov, Foreign Minister Daniel Mitov and Defence Minister Nikolay Nenchev.

Siderov wanted the three ministers to give account of the visits by high-level Western officials to Bulgaria – US State Secretary John Kerry, UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and NATO's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

According to Siderov, the three visits which happened within the space of a week, lacked transparency and it remained unclear what had been agreed at them.

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