Social Policy Minister Biser Petkov quit because he couldn’t meet demands made by protesting parents of disabled children – but after initially accepting his resignation, Bulgarian PM Boyko Borissov ordered him back to work.
Prime Minister Boyko Borissov on Tuesday reversed his initial decision and rejected the resignation of Bulgarian Labour and Social Policy Minister Biser Petkov, who quit the previous day.
Petkov filed his resignation at a Council of Ministers meeting on Monday afternoon, citing his “inability to manage the tensions with regards to the demands of children with disabilities’ parents”.
The parents have been protesting about the state’s treatment of their children since June 1, which is Children’s Day in Bulgaria.
The premier’s press office announced that Borissov accepted Petkov’s resignation, but at noon on Tuesday, the Bulgarian PM announced a change of heart.
According to Borissov, he told Petkov “to go back to work” on Tuesday morning, saying that he saw representatives of protesting mothers of children with disabilities saying that they worked well with the social policy minister.
“Petkov told me that he doesn’t have any communication with them, they [the parents] say on TV they have great communication with him… So we let him stay,” said Borissov in a live feed on his Facebook page.
Borissov said the social policy minister told him that “he can’t handle them, because they asked for an additional 300 million levs [about 153 million euros] per year [for social services]”.
“If this is the minister they like, if they say they can work with him and this won’t cost us additional funds, I am leaving him at his post,” he added.
Mothers of children with disabilities have set up tents at the back entrance of the Council of Ministers in their protest for a better, more personalised welfare system for disabled people.
Protesters also want the state to observe the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and better integration of children with special educational requirements into the school system.
In May, the Bulgarian parliament failed to respond to requests from various organisations representing people with disabilities to introduce a bill on personalised help for disabled people.
For more read the full of article at The Balkaninsight
