Guy Verhofstadt, Liberal group leader in the European Parliament, voiced on Thursday (17 December) his concern over plans in Sofia to hold a referendum aimed at banning a short news TV programme aimed at Bulgaria's Turkish-speaking minority.
"The Bulgarian government must see sense," Verhofstadt stated in Strasbourg, where the European Parliament was holding its last plenary session of the year.
"Supporting Ataka's request for a national referendum on a matter of minority rights is inevitably going to favour the linguistic majority," warned the former Belgian prime minister.
According to Verhofstadt, the initiative risks putting Bulgaria at odds with fundamental international legal and political obligations governing the protection and respect for minorities and minority languages.
"Closure of this news programme will inflame tensions within Bulgarian society and discredit the country's reputation in the international community as well as breaching the EU treaty principle of non-discrimination on grounds of ethnicity and language," Verhofstadt said in a statement.
Nationalist party initiative
On 14 December, Bulgaria's Prime Minister Boyko Borossov said that he supports the initiative by Ataka, a nationalist and xenophobic party, for a referendum, aimed at banning the news programme in Turkish language on Bulgarian National Television.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Ataka leader Volen Siderov, Borissov said that there was only one official language in Bulgaria, according to its constitution, and this language is Bulgarian.
Ataka, who holds 21 out of 240 seats in the Bulgarian one-chamber parliament, said they had already collected the 48 signatures from MPs needed to trigger a motion for holding a referendum. Should a simple majority of the 240 MPs vote in favour of the referendum, within a month the president needs to issue a decree to hold the poll.
According to a transcript from Bulgarian national radio accompanied by a streamed video, Borissov, who leads a minority government supported by Ataka, stated: "The most democratic way to decide […] is the referendum. Therefore I support this decision. Only by doing so will we be absolutely certain what the Bulgarian people wants."
Siderov said that according to specialised polls, "almost nobody" listens to the Turkish language news programme. He added that such a programme only adds costs to the national broadcaster.
The opposition Socialist Party, however, noted that a nationwide referendum would cost many times more. Several Socialist MPs strongly criticised the idea of holding a referendum on the Turkish language broadcasts.
Yane Yanev, leader of the 'Order, Law and Justice' (RZS) party, who until recently supported GERB, described the referendum idea as "madness" and "an offence to democracy".
President reacts
Bulgaria's President Georgi Parvanov, who is a former leader of the Socialist Party, also reacted against the referendum initiative. "I suspect that a big trap is been put in place for the prime minister: I hope he also realises that," Parvanov stated.
The mainly ethnic Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms (NDSV) called the referendum initiative "dangerous" and "harmful" for Bulgaria.
"We call on the prime minister and on GERB to reconsider its idea, because GERB risks losing its identity," NDSV MP Lyutfi Mestan stated in parliament.
A spokesperson for the European People's Party (EPP) declined to comment to EurActiv at this stage. GERB is affiliated to the EPP, the largest group in the European Parliament, which won the elections in June this year.
At the request of the Parliament's liberal ALDE group, it has been agreed that the subject will be added to European Parliament's plenary agenda in January.