In an unanymous vote, the National Council of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), vowed its confidence in its leader Kornelia Ninova Friday, according to BTA.

The party press office said that the confidence vote was 118-0 with no abstentions, "to continue the policy for changes in BSP and Bulgaria". Also, the National Council assessed in positive terms the party's performance in the March 26 early general elections and identified some mistakes in the campaign.

The BSP leadership also decided that if GERB invited them to talks on the formation of a government, they will attend and will say that they are not going to participate in a coalition government due to platform differences.

The National Council set up a working group to prepare proposals for priorities of the Bulgarian Presidency of the EU in 2018.

In her remarks at the start of the plenum Kornelia Ninova asked a vote of confidence from the National Council after BSP failed to win the most votes in the March 26 general elections.

Even though it was tipped by some polls as the likely winner in the elections, especially considering the recent overwhelming victory in the presidential elections, BSP won the second largest number of votes last Sunday. In multiple comments, Ninova said that even that was a success as the party nearly doubled its electorate from the previous general elections, won mandates in areas where it used to have none, emerged the leading force in seven district centres and broadened its support among young people. 

The BSP leader argued that the position in favour of scrapping the EU sanctions against Russia is not anti-European because a number of other European politicians and government leaders hold similar positions. "We don't criticize the EU. We are criticizing the European Right wing which brought things here. Our struggle from now on will be for a strong and united EU, and for a worthy place in it for Bulgaria," announced Ninova.