Bulgaria Blue Coalition Leader: We Work Fine with Ruling Party GERB

Ivan Kostov, Co-Chair of Bulgaria’s rightist Blue Coalition, said Sunday the ruling party GERB was paying serious attention to the advice it got from its partners.

GERB of PM Borisov has 116 MPs out of 240, and even though it technically formed a “minority government”, it is backed by nationalist Ataka party with 21 MPs, rightist Blue Coalition with 15 MPs, and conservative RZS with 10 MPs.

“GERB is listening to our suggestions, and is complying with them,” Kostov said referring to the proposal for raising the gambling tax to 15%, and reducing the period for VAT refund.

In his words, the Blue Coalition will insist on adopting legal provisions to make people who borrowed or lent more than BGN 20 000 declare that in their tax forms, which is supposed to be a strong measure against tax evasion and money laundering.

“We have been talking about high-level crime and that is why we demand a secondary investigation into the property of the leader of the DPS party Ahmed Dogan. We have been supported by the Prime Minister, and I think he is going to go all the way. This must happen because the secrets of the post-1989 transition can’t remain unexposed, and we can’t move on without that,” Kostov said.

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