Pro-Russian parties block Bulgarian parliament over Soviet monument demolition

11 months ago 32

Pro-Russian parties Vazrazhdane and BSP blocked the work of the Bulgarian parliament on Thursday in protest at the dismantling of the Soviet Army Monument in Sofia.

The leader of the far-right pro-Russian party Vazrazhdane, Kostadin Kostadinov, called on his colleagues to express their opposition to the monument’s demolition by blocking parliamentary work.

“Without a legal act, without an order, without a decision, in the centre of Sofia, some people armed with cutting machines are rampaging,” Kostadinov said.

Kostadinov’s call prompted MPs from the pro-Russian BSP and the populist ITN party to block parliament’s rostrum. The BSP and Vazrazhdane threatened not to allow parliament to work until they received the documents authorising the demolition of the Soviet monument. ITN’s protest was in response to the ongoing judicial reform.

The nearly 45-metre-high monument has dominated the Bulgarian capital’s landscape for the past 70 years. Still, the new pro-EU coalition government began the process of dismantling it after being motivated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Bulgarian parliament has until Christmas to pass the state budget and the constitutional reform of the judiciary, which is important for Bulgaria’s accession to Schengen.

“We cannot understand our colleagues from Vazrazhdane, BSP and ITN. How can they become a brake on the most important payments in the state? Citizens are waiting for this budget to be adopted; pensions and health insurance depend on it,” said Kiril Petkov, co-leader of the ruling Continue the Change party.

BSP leader Kornelia Ninova said that the meeting had been suspended to receive all the documents for dismantling the Soviet monument.

Even before the action by the pro-Russian parties, data had emerged showing that the monument was built entirely illegally by the totalitarian pro-Soviet regime in 1954 and that the figures of Red Army soldiers were cracked and posed a danger to pedestrians.

(Krassen Nikolov | Euractiv.bg)