Bulgaria is being imposed from abroad the EUR 8 B debt proposal now put forward for a vote in Parliament, nationalist Ataka party's leader Volen Siderov has argued.

Siderov has told the Bulgarian National Television that the prospective foreign borrowing is to be used "for military purposes".

Ataka has maintained since the beginning of 2015 that the West is preparing for a war with Russia over Ukraine and has cited as evidence the decision to station a NATO command center in Bulgaria and five other Eastern European member states. The government has downplayed his claims as part of the propaganda spread by Russia.

The leader and lawmaker, who recently paid a visit to the Crimean Peninsula without being assigned to do so by Parliament, refused to name his sources, but added his data was "informal".

"It has been long since they are pressuring us into boosting defense expenditure so that they sell us their scrap iron for weapons," in his words.

Over the past ten days the Finance Ministry has insisted on a proposal under which Bulgaria will take on EUR 8 B, or BGN 16 B, of debt which will be used to finance deficits and payments on existing liabilities between 2015 and 2017. The idea was met with resistance from a number of parties, and a decision in Parliament was postponed twice in 48 hours earlier this week.

On Friday Siderov also dismissed the approach of ruling GERB party (also in charge of the Finance Ministry which made the proposal) to debt talks with other forces in Parliament, including with coalition partners.

"[Effort to] convince coalition partners - this is absurd, it means they did not talk about it until now," he stressed, maintaining the debt proposal was yet another evidence of colonialism here.

He reiterated that Bulgarian ministers were "colonial clerks who are looking forward to what the boss will tell them."

"John McCain is an absolutely senile man who came to Bulgaria and stopped South Stream," he added, referring to a visit by three US senators in June 2014 which was followed by ex-PM Plamen Oresharski's announcement that South Stream's construction would come to a halt until a further EU decision.

"People should mobilize [as they did] in Greece, to demand a brisk change," Siderov argued.

Ataka's Chairman, who over the past few years has been famous mostly for his Russophile, anti-NATO (and often anti-EU) remarks, stood up for his right to visit Crimea, which he did with a delegation of other party members last Saturday to meet local officials.

He insisted he had been invited by communities of the ethnic Bulgarian minority living in Ukraine. He also explained that, as a lawmaker, he had a right to pay such visits without being authorized by Parliament to do so:

"I am elected by the people, by voters, it is unnecessary that someone sends me on a mission."

"I was there like a representative of Bulgaria. Virtually, in my face Bulgaria recognized Crimea," he made clear.

Sofia has not recognized the move of the Crimean peninsula to break away from Ukraine and join Russia following a local vote held March 16 of last year.

But Siderov announced during his trip to the peninsula that his party would seek a shift in Bulgaria's position through a vote in Parliament.

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