Borissov Downplays Bulgaria's Support for Hungary

Bulgaria is sending mixed messages about its position on the Hungarian government of Viktor Orban in the event of a future vote in the Council of the EU on Budapest losing its voting rights.

After members of the ruling coalition in Sofia on Wednesday said they were preparing a declaration of support for Hungary, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov on Thursday brushed the decision aside, saying it would have "no legal value".

Speaking ahead of a congress in Salzburg of the centre-right European Popular Party, EPP, to which both his party and Orban's party belong, he said the declaration merely represented moral support to Hungary in case "some time in the future ... there is a risk [to Hungary] of losing its vote."

"There is no drama, there is no decision", the Bulgarian Prime Minister added.

His comments contrasted clearly with the position of his nationalist VMRO and NFSB coalition partners, who drafted the declaration in support of Orban in Sofia.

"What they are doing to Hungary and what they try to do to Poland is a repressive measure. The arguments are the same, like the ones the USSR used in 1956," Krassimir Karakachanov, Defence Minister and leader of the VMRO fraction said, alluding to the Soviet invasion of Hungary that year.

He directly compared the European Parliament decision to push forward with the Article 7 process to identify "clear risk of serious breach" of the EU values by the Budapest government to the crushing of the Hungarian uprising.

Vessela Tcherneva, head of the European Council of Foreign Relations in Sofia, ECFR-Sofia, meanwhile said the government's decision had no real value apart from showcasing the ambitions of two Bulgarian politicians to follow the model of Orban.

She confirmed also that it...