Bulgaria’s Parliament rejected a Proposal to Terminate the Defense Cooperation Agreement with the US

With 37 votes "for", 166 "against" and 18 "abstentions", the parliament rejected a draft decision to terminate the Agreement between the governments of Bulgaria and the United States on cooperation in the field of defense, submitted by the pro-Russian party "Vazrazhdane" (Revival). GERB-SDS, WCC-DB, DPS and "There Is Such a People: voted "against", BSP abstained,
"Vazrazhdane" were "for". The agreement, signed in 2006, is related to the joint use, with the American military, of four military bases in our country - the Novo Selo training ground, including the warehouses and facilities of the town of Aytos, the Bezmer air base and the Graf Ignatievo air base. The debate lasted nearly 2 hours.

According to Kostadin Kostadinov, the contract poses a danger to national security:
"Currently, Bulgaria, as a NATO country, is a border country with Russia across the Black Sea. At the same time, there are American bases in Bulgaria, there is American weaponry, and we don't even know what it is exactly. The Americans also built an airport, including in Novo Selo. We don't control it, we don't know what they put there".

Former Foreign Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva from GERB stated:

"It's a good idea to at least read the agreement that you want terminated. I will read it to you: 'The contracted facilities and objects are state property, with full respect for the sovereignty and laws of the Republic of Bulgaria. The leaders are Bulgarian military personnel," said MP Hristo Gadjev from GERB-SDS.

"If you had bothered to read a little, you would have known that there are no Americans in Novo Selo, but there are Italians, because the Multinational Battlegroup of NATO is currently based there: there are Montenegrins, there are Albanians, there are Greeks, even North Macedonians".

The Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Kristian Vigenin from BSP criticizes the importers:

"Creating fears that we have no reason to have! Some of the things you say are so, they are reasonable, there is logic, but you make them meaningless with the other things. You are behaving here like you are 'Ataka' from AliExpress".
("Ataka" is an extreme-right political party that used to gather the support of ultranationalist voters in Bulgaria)

Kristian Vigenin made an editorial proposal not to terminate the agreement, but only to require information on its implementation, but this was also not accepted.

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