Acting Bulgarian PM won't sign Kyiv-Sofia security agreement without parliamentary approval

Dimitar Glavchev, acting Prime Minister of Bulgaria, is seeking the consent of the National Assembly (parliament) to sign a bilateral security agreement with Ukraine, stating that he will not proceed without it.

Source: Glavchev before the EU-Western Balkans summit in Brussels on Wednesday, 18 December, as reported by European Pravda, citing Bulgarian news agency BNR

Details: Earlier on Wednesday, Glavchev requested that parliament grant the interim government he leads a mandate to sign a security agreement with Ukraine.

"If the National Assembly does not gather a majority to support the agreement, I will not sign it," Glavchev told reporters.

He stressed that the agreement "is legally non-binding, political and does not fall under the scope of treaties subject to ratification by the National Assembly".

"The only thing that worries me is the ten-year validity period [of the agreement]... But I think it is too optimistic to think that we will be an interim government for ten years," the acting prime minister added.

Notably, Bulgaria has been experiencing a political crisis for several years due to the parliament's inability to form a stable government, resulting in seven early elections in the country over the past four years.

Background:

• Reports emerged in late October suggesting that a security agreement between Ukraine and Bulgaria was being prepared.
• To date, Ukraine has signed almost 30 such bilateral documents and the Ukraine Compact, a multilateral document containing commitments on support for Ukraine.

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