/ world today news/ The National Assembly will consider and vote on a draft decision to recognize the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire and declare April 24 as a day of remembrance for the victims, reported a BGNES reporter.
This item was already scheduled on Wednesday as the first item for Friday, but on Thursday it was left for third, and this meant that it would not be considered.
At the beginning of today’s meeting, after several procedural proposals, voting and re-voting, the point was again returned as the first, and the deputies will have to finally decide on it.
At the beginning of the meeting, the Patriotic Front proposed an extension of the working hours today until the adoption of item three of the agenda, which was the draft resolution of “Attack”. This proposal was rejected by the majority in the room. The Patriotic Front defended from the rostrum a proposal that the genocide be honored with at least one minute of silence, but Tsetska Tsacheva did not respect this request with procedural arguments. The Speaker of the Parliament announced that there is a similar proposal from Ataka, but since it is related to item three of the agenda, it cannot be allowed at the moment.
Meanwhile, some of the deputies in the plenary hall, mostly from the Patriotic Front, “Ataka” and BSP rose to their feet, despite Tsacheva’s refusal to hold the minute of silence officially. When some of the MPs rose to their feet, all MPs from the DPS left the hall. The deputies from GERB and the Reform Bloc remained seated, although among them there was hesitation as to exactly how to proceed in the confusing situation.
Immediately after leaving the hall from DPS Desislav Chukolov from “Ataka” again proposed a change in the program – to make the third point the first for today. While the vote was taking place, the MPs of the DPS immediately returned to the hall, but nevertheless it was successful. A re-vote was requested from the DPS, but even after that, Ataka’s proposal gathered the necessary votes, and so the draft decision on the recognition of the Armenian Genocide will be considered as the first point of today’s meeting.
Deputies from all groups except DPS voted for the change in the program, which will allow the Bulgarian parliament to rule on this issue. Several people’s representatives from GERB, BDC and ABV abstained.
As soon as it finally became clear that the topic of genocide will be discussed today, Rumen Hristov from the Reform Bloc and Menda Stoyanova from GERB requested that points two and three be considered today as well and proposed an extension of the meeting until their adoption, which was accepted by the majority. Thus, in practice, the parliament will sit today while voting on the first three points of today’s program, which was the first proposal at the beginning of the meeting.
Ataka’s proposal to broadcast the debates and voting on the topic of the Armenian Genocide live on the Bulgarian National Television and the Bulgarian National Radio was not accepted.
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