The Consultative Council on National Security, convened by President Rumen Radev, focusing on the financial measures to address the Covid crisis and the measures against the increased migratory pressure at Bulgaria’s border with Turkey due to the events in Afghanistan, lasted almost 5 hours.

After the end of the meeting, Maya Manolova from “Stand Up BG! We Are Coming!” expressed her concern over the lack of even a minimal amount of accord among the political parties regarding the risks to Bulgaria – migration, the social and the health crisis.

Desislava Atanasova, chair of the GERB parliamentary group stated that no consensus had been reached. Even though the question of a budget update was not on the meeting’s agenda, GERB party reaffirmed its position that it was not going to support it and demanded that the President refrain from linking it with the handing of government-forming mandates.

Movement for Rights and Freedoms leader Mustafa Karadayi walked out of the meeting before it was over, dissatisfied with the “shift away from the issues initially announced”.

Hristo Ivanov from “Democratic Bulgaria” struck a more positive note, describing the Council as an exceedingly informative discussion. “We discussed the whole system of crises Bulgaria is faced with. On the question of the budget update, we decided to leave the issue up to parliament,” he said.

Bulgarian Socialist Party leader Kornelia Ninova declared that the Interior Ministry and the Ministry of Defence have a plan for countering the migrant flow but that no calculations had as yet been made as to the cost. She declined any more information saying it was confidential.