There can be no compromises as long an impeachment procedure against me is underway, President Georgi Purvanov told a March 12 2010 news conference.

"After the issue gets reviewed by the Constitutional Court we can start afresh" Purvanov said.

"Right now the impeachment motion casts a shadow on our relations" he said.

This was his first comment on the decision by GERB to table an impeachment motion against Pruvanov. GERB decided to start the procedure after Purvanov published the transcripts of a March 5 meeting between himself and Finance Minister Simeon Dyankov online.

Dyankov claimed not to have been informed that the meeting was being recorded which according to GERB was a violation of article 32 of the Bulgarian constitution which says that "no one shall be followed, photographed, filmed, recorded or subjected to any other similar activity without his knowledge or despite his express disapproval, except when such actions are permitted by law".

Purvanov described the grounds upon which the ruling party GERB would table a motion for impeachment as ridiculous.

"I don’t accept the notion that Dyankov did not known that our conversation is being transcribed" Purvanov said. ‘Everyone who comes to talk to me in this building and in this room presses a button, not because speakers must be turned on but because his words must recorded. This has been the practice for the past 20 years and until now no one has been surprised by it" he said.

"I can only hope that Prime Minister Boiko Borissov follows the same routine in his office for the sake of having a record of the events," Purvanov said.

Answering a question why he chose to publish the transcript of the conversation online, Purvanov said: ‘I did it for the sake of transparency and I expected that you, the media, would be pleased with it. This was the only way to show things as they were, without the need to retell the conversation afterwards".

Purvanov, however, refused to say what he and Borissov had discussed after the transcript was published on March 5.

On the subject of whether there was a need for another meeting between him and Borissov that would cool things down, Purvanov said that he did not expect a meeting as he saw no need to have one.

‘I haven’t started any conflict so that I would need to seek reconciliation. However there is no doubt that there is a need for cooperation between institutions. This cooperation was seriously damaged by the ruling majority's decision to table the impeachment motion.

We need to work together and now the Council of Ministers is on the move. They must chose the level of our cooperation. It is up to them," Purvanov said and noted that he did no want any kind of war among institutions in times when the only battle to be fought was against the economic crisis.  

‘I want the dialogue between institutions to be resumed. However this dialogue can not exists under the threat of impeachment," Purvanov said.

According to him, the row was based on the fact that Dyankov had become the symbol of the Government’s economic policy which had failed to produce positive results.

Referring to Prime Minister Boiko Borissov's suggestion that both Purvanov and himself should resign and face each other in an election, Purvanov said the idea of early elections should to be dropped once and for all.

"I heard this idea that we must both file our resignations and together go to the polls. What would this bring us in this situation of crisis? At the moment there can be no better solution than the current Government of Boiko Borissov and I want it to succeed" Purvanov said.

"I can not imagine that a caretaker government can prepare and implement an anti-crisis policy," he said.

"We must get this idea out of our heads and must start working. Politics is not just scandals and elections but also the ability to implement a certain policy," Purvanov said.

As for the question whether he intended to remain in politics after the end of his second term in office in 2012 by forming a political party Purvanov said "this is my own business".