A scandal on the sidelines of the National Assembly accompanied today’s plenary session. The co-chairman of „We continue the change“ Asen Vasilev and Zhecho Stankov from GERB got into a verbal confrontation in front of the other deputies and in front of the media. They argued about energy.
The specific reason for the dispute was the proposal to open the Recovery and Resilience Plan and to renegotiate the commitment made in it to close the power plants from the Mariska basin. A little earlier, this position was announced by Boyko Borisov, who was accompanied by deputies from GERB. Then he made accusations personally to Asen Vasilev that he had caused damage to the energy industry.
People’s representatives from the Vazrazhdane party joined the scandal in the parliament. They also declared strongly against closing down power plants in our country and accused „We continue the change“.
Vasilev explained to the media that in Brussels they very clearly said that there is no way our coal plants can be closed and replaced by natural gas production. After about a month, the European Commission agreed to a compromise, which he described as “possible, considering what Borissov’s government had previously signed”. The trade-off is a 40% reduction in emissions, without closing coal-fired power plants.
While Vassilev was answering journalistic questions, Zhecho Stankov intervened in the conversation, who accused him of lying and tried to show him a piece of paper, which he claimed contained a decision of the National Assembly. Stankov claims that this decision would have cost Bulgaria 6 billion, which was categorically rejected by Asen Vassilev. He is categorical that the decision to close the plants was made in 2020 by the government of none other than Boyko Borisov himself.
