This week’s second sitting of the Consultative Council on National Security on the need of legislative measures against corruption didn’t achieve the results expected. President Rumen Radev made it clear that there was no consensus on the role and functions of the future anti-corruption body and also on its board. The ruling GERB party refused to support the demand of the socialists for an anti-corruption body for the fight with corruption, stating that such support would contradict the constitution. Severe mutual accusations followed. The socialists refused to sanction their MP Georgi Stoilov in relation with the arrest of his brother for heading a racketeering gang. The socialists said the brothers’ actions were not related and the 2015 case served as distraction from the scandal with GERB leading figures having appointed their relatives on powerful positions. GERB however revealed the partnership of the two brothers in a joint company. The socialists then reminded partnership from the past of PM Boyko Borissov with mobsters and an MP stated that top spy of the state Dragomir Dimitrov was a second cousin of the premier. Even the council of ministers refuted that statement, but it all came to show the growing tension amidst the major political players and inside the parties themselves. In only a week the Bulgarian Socialist Party will have a congress with its agenda having been approved by only 4 votes more and some say it will test the authority of its leader Kornelia Ninova. The latter didn’t reject inner contradictions within the socialists, but saw even bigger ones within GERB due to too much power, in her words. Then the confrontation grew bigger when the BSP demanded the resignations of Vice Premier Valeri Simeonov and Interior Minister Rumen Radev due to the adding of the wire fence along the Turkish border to the list of strategic national security sites. Now with the forthcoming discussion of the state budget for next year things will get even worse. It looks like the end of the 2017 will be pretty hot in politics.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev