Bulgaria's President Rosen Plevneliev has resorted to a dubious theatrical move by leaving the Constitutional Court inauguration to prevent a far more dubious judge, Veneta Markovska, from taking office.
Not unlike Raymond, whom everybody loves in that sitcom, and who doesn't take a stand when facing serious family problems but resorts to tactical-theatrical-flank-rear-guard manoeuvres.
Not just because he's got no clear-cut solutions but mostly 'cause he's afraid of enraging his mother Marie, named Boyko in the Bulgarian script.
The scene that Rosen-Raymond performed made him "dignified", "wise", "brilliant". At least according to his co-stars in the Balkan sitcom about Bulgaria's GERB government – the mother-prime, wife-vice-president, brother-deputy-PM, neighbor-justice-minister, and even father-bitching-socialist-opposition.
This leaves no doubt they'd all read the script and learned their lines by heart – after beating about the bush before the entire EU-neighborhood about the Sofia family's happiness.
The problem is that the executive, legislature, and judiciary in a true EU country are expected to take drastic measures to bolster the rule of law instead of staging Balkan-style sittragicoms.
Without such measures, in Bulgaria we'll keep watching the "Everybody Loves Rosen" sitcom, and, unlike the original, this one ain't even funny.
THIS ARTICLE IN BULGARIAN