Asen Vassilev: There are three groups in Bulgaria – one wants Europe, others Moscow, the third – Latin American model – Important today

Bulgarian society is divided into three large groups with different understandings of the direction of the country’s development, and they can easily lead to a mutual blockade. This was commented by the co-chairman of the PP Asen Vassilev to “Panorama”.

“One group liked the development of Bulgaria by Latin American model in the last 10 years. The result is that now there are people and groups with a huge resource, 1 million emigrants, and when I came into the Treasury, I found 1 million people below the poverty line,” he said.

The second group wants to change this pattern and strives to European developmentor in Vassilev’s words – “to reduce inequalities and distribute money much more widely”.

“The third group also wants to change the old model, but they want to push us in the direction of Moscow, Beijing Orban. They want a Eurasian model of development. These groups are of equal weight in society and it is very easy to reach a deadlock. It is very difficult for one of these groups to push Bulgaria either towards Europe, or towards Moscow, or towards a Latin American model,” he added.

“In six elections, there were only two governments that we made with a clear awareness that this was a compromise and we would be blamed for it. We made them so that Bulgaria would go towards Europe, and the moment it stopped going to Europe, those governments fell“, said Asen Vassilev.

He compared the scandals surrounding the Customs Agency to the saga surrounding the action of the prosecutor’s office in the presidential building in the summer of 2020, which led to the outbreak of large-scale anti-government protests.

Vassilev entered the an open dispute with the until recently Chairman of the National Assembly Rosen Zhelyazkov on the need for reform of the security services – one of the reasons that led to the collapse of their joint management.

Zhelyazkov defined as impossible the deadlines set by PP-DB in the draft agreement for the cabinet with Prime Minister Maria Gabriel for changes in the system of security services. He also accused PP-DB of understanding “reform as arranging your people in the services to control the repressive apparatus”.

On this comment, Vassilev reminded that the purpose of the proposals for change was that the chairmen of intelligence and counterintelligence were to be elected by the National Assembly without PP-DB dominance, on the proposal of the government, which would be led by Gabriel (GERB).

However, Zhelyazkov continued to insist that “we have been observing the reform with a change of leaders since 1989 without much effect” – a similar argument to the one due to which the party refused for years to pay attention to the systemic problem in the management of the prosecution.