Some 1,000 police officers and prison personnel staged a demonstration outside the Interior Ministry on Sunday, protesting against poor working conditions and low wages. They were supported by colleagues from Romania, who carried a sign saying: "The Romanian police are on your side".

The trade union federation representing Interior Ministry officers said that it sees a "soulless adversary" in the Ministry leadership. The federation's deputy chair Valentin Grozev said the protests will continue until the police officers' demands are met. "Bulgaria is a developing democratic society, but democracy has not reached the Interior Ministry," he said. According to Grozev, the trade unions' dialogue with the Interior Ministry is failing.

Later in the day, the police officers staged a march to the Finance Ministry, where they threw money as a sign of protest, and went on to the St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral and the Monument to the Unknown Soldier, where they laid wreaths of flowers.

"The dialogue with the trade unions is not to be conducted on the street," Deputy Interior Minister Pavlin Dimitrov told BTA. Asked why he did not meet with the protesters and attended, instead, an official party of another police union, Dimitrov said he does not share the protesters' demands. "They are clearly unfeasible, and they are raised as an ultimatum. Nonetheless, no union will be favoured over another. It is not a secret that there are problems in the Interior Ministry accumulated over the course of 20 years, but the trade union federation for the Interior Ministry is not engaged in purely unionist activities," he said.

Given the current financial state of the Interior Ministry, the goals should be realistic and there must be understanding and tolerance, Dimitrov said.

He believes that the Ministry should get rid of noncore functions. He maintains that the trade union federation knows the problems but disagrees about the way they should be addressed. "The dialogue should not be conducted through the media or on the street," the Deputy Interior Minister argued.

The First Vice President of the European Confederation of Police, Miroslav Litva, told journalists that he sees certain untapped opportunities for Bulgaria to resolve the issues raised by the Interior Ministry unions. The rights of the unions' members are quite limited, and these limitations are not in line with the requirements in other European countries, he said. Litva was an official guest at observances of the 20th anniversary of Bulgaria's National Police Trade Union.

Source: BTA