Bulgaria's ruling party GERB has not backed away from its decision to table a motion in Parliament to impeach President Georgi Purvanov, Bulgarian news agency BTA said on March 12 2010.

The party held two hours of talks after Purvanov held a news conference at which he described the grounds cited for wanting his impeachment as "ridiculous".

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 said that he had not 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".

At his March 12 news conference, Purvanov said that there could be no compromises as long an impeachment procedure against him was underway.

"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, referring to relations among Bulgaria's institutions of state.

"I don’t accept the notion that Dyankov did not know that our conversation was 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.

In a March 13 2010 interview with Bulgaria's Darik Radio, Interior Minister Tsvetan Tsvetanov said that GERB would start collecting signatures in Parliament next week to initiate the impeachment procedure.

A motion to start a debate in Parliament on impeaching the President needs to be supported by a minimum of 60 out of 240 MPs.

To approve the motion and send it to the Constitutional Court, the ruling majority would need 161 votes.

GERB has 117 MPs. The ultra-nationalist Ataka and the right-wing Blue Coalition, who have already said they would support the motion, have a total of 35 MPs.


On March 11 2010, the centre-right Order, Law and Justice party said that it too would support the motion, which with its eight MPs in theory would provide GERB with the needed 161 votes, given that two other independent MPs are also expected to support it.

When GERB decided to launch the impeachment procedure, Prime Minister and GERB leader Boiko Borissov said he was against it, but had to comply with his party’s decision.