Bulgaria: Initiative Committee is preparing a Referendum on March 3 remaining the National Holiday

In the weeks following President Rumen Radev's call to preserve the Third of March as a national holiday, an Initiative Committee of scientists, public figures, and intellectuals created the "Third of March" Movement for this purpose. President Rumen Radev announced the idea of the celebrations on Mount Shipka, declaring the Third of March "the red line of our patience, which the people's movement will not allow to be erased". The president's words were then commented by observers as the start of Radev's political project.

Member of the European Parliament Petar Vitanov, who led the press conference announcing the initiative, denied that it was a fulfillment of the president's call. In response to a question, Vitanov said that President Rumen Radev is not part of the initiative. Their idea was not to form a political party, but to ask the question whether the Bulgarian people want to change their national holiday. Among the initiators, however, he listed the names of people who supported Rumen Radev for a second term as president - Vesela Lecheva, Prof. Iskra Baeva, Prof. Alexander Marinov, Velislava Dureva.

"We are ready to put this issue to a public consultation through a referendum", Vitanov said.

Among the initiators are Prof. Iskra Baeva, ex-Minister of Sports Vesela Lecheva, Georgi Kadiev, Prof. Valeri Stefanov, Associate Professor Valeri Zhablyanov, the boxer Tervel Pulev, the journalist Yavor Dachkov, the mayor of Kalofer Rumen Stoyanov, who supported the idea on behalf of the National Association of the mayors of town halls, of which he was the chairman.

Lawyer Yavor Notev, former deputy speaker of the National Assembly, explained that the goal of the movement is to collect 400,000 legitimate signatures so...