Bulgarian pro-Russian party joins BRICS forum in Moscow

The pro-Russian radical party and third largest group in the Bulgarian parliament, Revival, will send a delegation to a BRICS forum in Moscow later this month – a surprising move as Bulgaria has no formal relations with the BRICS and Revival has only a marginal say at local government level.
Under the Russian presidency, the BRICS countries of Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia and the UAE will meet in Moscow to exchange “experiences and ideas” and build “effective business communications with entrepreneurs in Russia and other partner countries,” according to Revival’s description of the forum on its website.
It will be “an opportunity to build diplomatic relations and develop potential partnerships with all countries of the world, ” Revival leader Kostadin Kostadinov wrote about the Moscow forum.
At the same time, he acknowledged that Bulgaria’s foreign policy should be “independent and consistent only with our national interests”.
Kostadinov also said that his party would send a delegation to a BRICS summit in China in November at the invitation of the deputy minister of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
Before the European elections, a Revival delegation attended a conference of Putin’s United Russia party, and after the visit, it was announced that the party would become part of the far-right Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament.
Revival is currently part of the Sovereignist group in the European Parliament and has decided to follow Alternative for Germany (AfD), which was expelled from the far-right ID group after comments made by its leading candidate in the European elections, Maximilian Kroes, were ‘too far right’ even for French far-right leader Marine Le Pen.
(Krassen Nikolov | Euractiv.bg)
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