B2B Magazine

BSP for Bulgaria floor leader Georgi Svilenski Monday said the Executive Bureau of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) would propose to the National Council two possible courses of action concerning the cabinet-forming mandate. A decision about the party’s next steps will become known in the coming days.
The BSP’s National Council is meeting on Tuesday.
Earlier in the day, outgoing Labour and Social Policy Minister Georgi Gyokov, who is a BSP member, said the BSP’s chance of forming a cabinet on the third mandate within the present Parliament was almost zero.
There are arguments in support of the government, as well as many arguments in the opposite direction. One of the things that weigh in favour of the present government is that there are dozens of outstanding problems which must be solved urgently. But there is also the insecure position of the outgoing government and of a future government within this majority in Parliament. Gyokov added that there are many pros and cons and they should be considered very carefully.
The BSP started negotiating with its coalition partners of the Kiril Petkov cabinet – Continue the Change, There Is Such a People (TISP) and Democratic Bulgaria – after it received the third mandate from President Rumen Radev on July 18. On July 22, TISP leader Slavi Trifonov said he was withdrawing from the talks and would not support a new cabinet after seeing an accidentally livestreamed meeting at which the Democratic Bulgaria parliamentary group discussed the negotiations.
Interviewed on Nova TV on Sunday, outgoing Prime Minister Kiril Petkov ruled out TISP as a coalition partner. 
BSP and Democratic Bulgaria believe there are too many crises at present and every avenue should be explored before handing back the mandate and going to snap elections. 
To nominate or not to nominate PM
The BSP now has two options: to decide against nominating a prime minister, or to nominate one, in which case the prime minister designate will have seven days to hold talks on the cabinet’s structure and lineup in line with the interpretive ruling of December 23, 1992, Assoc. Prof. Natalia Kiselova told BTA. Asked if there is a deadline for naming a prime minister on the third mandate, she said that between 1992 and 2017 this was done within seven days of handing the mandate.
Commenting on the constitutional provisions on the timing of the presentation and return of a cabinet-forming mandate, Kiselova said that the Constitution and the interpretive ruling deliberately do not set time limits for certain actions because some Election Code time-frames may require an extra day or week.
On July 22, BSP leader Korneliya Ninova indicated that she would keep the government-forming mandate for as long as it takes to elect a new chairperson of the energy and water regulator. According to Ninova, that procedure could end on August 12 under the best-case scenario. Therefore, the four parliamentary groups which were involved in the negotiations at the time considered proposing that the National Assembly start its summer recess on August 15 instead of August 1.
The opposition – GERB-UDF, Vazrazhdane and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms – have urged the President to disband Parliament and schedule elections.
Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov said in a Facebook post that if BSP leader Korneliya Ninova does not return the mandate, the President should disband Parliament in the coming days and schedule elections in September. Kostadinov commented that the BSP should return the mandate on July 25, although he himself doubted that this would happen. In the end of the day, it will all depend on the President, he said.
GERB-UDF floor leader Desislava Atanasova told bTV on Monday that apparently Continue the Change does not want the negotiations on the formation of a cabinet to succeed and that the BSP should promptly return the mandate. Asked about a possible election date, Atanasova said that October 2 was discussed at the consultations with the President before he handed the mandate to Ninova. The GERB-UDF floor leader assumed, however, that the date may have to be brought forward in light of the recent developments.

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