Patriotic Front

Lawmakers have given the thumbs up on a six-month bridge loan worth BGN 3 B (EUR 1.5 B).

The country has picked Citibank NA (London), HSBC Bank PLC, and local units of Societe Generale and UniCredit to provide the sum.

Under the agreement signed October 8, Bulgaria is granted a bridge loan of EUR 1.5 B to be paid off with government securities in 2015.

The Parliament's Committee on corruption, conflicts of interest and parliamentary ethics will stop reviewing anonymous tip-offs, according to Valentin Nikolov, chair of the entity.

Slavi Binev, MP of the Patriotic Front, resigned from his position as head of the Parliamentary Committee For Culture And Media.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the PF group in Parliament and was announced by the co-chairperson of the group Valeri Simeonov in front of journalists.

The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee (BHC) has expressed indignation at the warning of Health Minister Petar Moskov that emergency medical teams will not enter Roma districts unless their safety is guaranteed.

Voting should be made compulsory as early as in 2015, the co-chair of nationalist coalition Patriotic Front has said.

Patriotic Front, a nationalist coalition supporting Bulgaria's minority government, will not withdraw its support for the cabinet.

The coalition will be granted two official positions in return and will be able to send a Deputy Defense Minister to the cabinet and also to have a Deputy Governor of Sofia.

Velizar Enchev is leaving the parliamentary group of nationalist formation the Patriotic Front.

In a Sunday interview for Nova TV, he made clear that he was leaving the party due to the massive fraud that was being committed by its leadership.

Enchev's decision to quit the Patriotic Front leaves it with a total of 18 MPs in Parliament, according to reports of Sega daily.

The European Commission has given the thumbs up on a BGN 2.135 B operational program for Bulgaria, allocating the sum between 2014 an 2020, the European Commission has confirmed.

Bulgarian Tourism Minister Nikolina Angelkova has expressed hopes that her deputy, Branimir Botev, will step down.

Speaking Thursday in Plovdiv at the opening of the annual international meeting of tour operators, she suggested that Botev had been appointed Deputy Tourism Minister at the insistence of Valeri Simeonov from nationalist formation the Patriotic Front.

Orhan Ismailov, an ethnic Turk who has been appointed Deputy Minister of Defense, could disclose secret information to the Turkish intelligence, a nationalist leader has said.

Orhan Ismailov owes his "heady career" to the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS), Valeri Simeonov, who co-chairs the nationalist coalition Patriotic Front, told the Bulgarian National Television.