Bulgaria's Debt Proposal 'Imposed from Outside to Finance War' - Nationalist Leader

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".

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...