On Thursday, a closed session was held at the European Parliament in Brussels, here the new Bulgarian PM Petkov stated that around 20 people had been a deeply entrenched system of graft in Bulgaria.
He did not officially name all of them.
Petkov, who took office just a month ago, visited Brussels to attend a meeting of the Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights Monitoring Group (DRFMG) at the European Parliament’s civil liberties committee.
Petkov told media that he was pleased to witness that MEPs trusted his newly formed cabinet.
One of the reporters asked the PM about his take on the Prosecutor General’s request to apply the use of the new European rule of law mechanism in Bulgaria. While responding to this, he said that he would be glad such monitoring would be available as “the more, the better”.
However, he further said, “Everyone can see that the prosecutor’s office isn’t functioning properly. There is no way you can mislead the European institutions with good phrases; people are educated enough to know if something is false, no matter what terminology you use, just looking at the facts indicates that it doesn’t work, full stop.”
Reportedly, Petkov stated that the nation has suggested in its National Plan for Reconstruction and Development that the top prosecutor be subject to monitoring by a judge who will temporarily work as a prosecutor, rather than having “just God above his head.”
He also stated that the ruling coalition plans to completely transform the function of the top prosecutor, making him an “administrator” rather than a supremo.
“It’s simply a question of time. We need patience; we hope that none of our voters will be disappointed; we only took over a month and a half ago,” he remarked.