The government of the ruling center-right party GERB and Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has turned Bulgaria into the "ghetto" of the European Union, according to Sergey Stanishev, leader of the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party and head of the Party of European Socialists.

Stanishev spoke Saturday at the National Council of the BSP held in Sofia, which decided to hold the next Socialist Party Congress on February 16, 2013.

"We are under a government of the GERB establishment that has taken over the country. A government of big business personified by corporate interests in the economy," the Socialist chief stated, as cited by BGNES.

He further accused GERB of boosting poverty and destroying the Bulgarian economy, stressing that over 80 pieces of legislation initiated by Borisov's party can be described as lobbyist laws aimed at creating conditions for unfair competition.

"As a result, it's the people who're paying the bill. They are living in misery and poverty, and when the small and medium-sized enterprises get knocked down, what follows is unemployment. Four years age Bulgaria was still a poor country but the people lived with a better perspective and higher purchasing power," added Stanishev, who was the Prime Minister of Bulgaria in 2005-2009 heading a controversial coalition government.

"GERB hasn't been through the efforts for creating the fragile and imperfect Bulgarian democracy. For them, democracy is an empty term," he stated.

"GERB's rationale is that a lie that gets repeated 100 times becomes the truth. Politics today has been replaced with PR, reason has been replaced with hate," Stanishev believes.

In his words, Borisov's party is always finding excuses by putting the blame on somebody else.