Bulgarians Join Balkan Protest Against Soaring Food Prices
Bulgaria has joined Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro in organizing protests against rising food prices
Bulgaria is shaking with protest rallies for over a week now, after the Parliament passed the amendments to the controversial Forestry Act in a demonstration that those elected to rule the country have no idea how to do so.
The rallies against the legislation and the government- and business-instigated counter protests in support of it, the negotiations between the two sides, the presidential veto, the statements of ruling officials, and the information blackout by some media can be used as a handbook of don'ts in the rules of democratic lawmaking:
Don't attempt to pass lobbyist amendments with the hope they will fly once again without anyone noticing. Generations change and advance their ideas.
Don't turn your backs to Sofia being unable to enjoy skiing all winter and respond only to huge street pressure.
Don't begin to respect opposing public opinion after upholding laws.
Don't pass laws and later praise the President for vetoing them.
Don't laud Arab Spring revolutions and condemn your owns as benefiting organized crime.
Don't oppose different groups of your country's citizens with staged protests. Someone, many actually, will interview participants in the latter and all will hear them say they are rallying "because the mayor said so."
Don't manipulate media – there is free market competition, internet, Facebook...
Don't make a written law into a law to be obeyed only on the Prime Minister's order.
Otherwise, you are far, far away from European development of Bulgaria, from being citizens, from statesmanship, and actually from any democracy. Democracy does not have lookalikes.
If we look at history, there are not many cases in which relations between Bulgaria and Russia at the state level were as bad as they are at the moment.
The term “Iron Curtain” was not coined by Winston Churchill, but it was he who turned it into one of the symbols of the latter part of the twentieth century by using it in his famous Fulton speech of 1946.
Hardly anything could be said in defense of the new government's ideological profile, which is quite blurry; at the same time much can be disputed about its future "pro-European" stance.
Look who is lurking again behind the corner – the tandem of Advent International and Deutsche Bank, respectively the buyer of the Bulgarian Telecom Company in 2004 and the advisor of the Bulgarian government in the sweetest deal of the past decade, seem t
We have seen many times this circus which is being played out during the entire week and it only shows one thing - there is no need of a caretaker government in Bulgaria.
You have certainly noticed how many times President Rosen Plevneliev used the phrase “a broad-minded person” referring to almost every member of his caretaker government.
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