In the Bulgarian National Assembly on December 17, Valeri Simeonov, MP and co-leader of the Patriotic Front, spoke of Roma people in Bulgaria in the following statement:

"Why do the people who used to work and send their children to school 25 years ago in the times of socialism now have become brash, overconfident and ferocious great apes wanting the right to be paid without working, sickness benefits without being ill, childcare for children who play with the pigs in the streets and maternity benefits for women with the instincts of street bitches? What brings to existence the belief of our dark fellow countrymen that everything is permitted, that everything is allowed and that everyone is obliged to feed them, clothe them and give them treatment free of charge? For more than two decades already, Bulgarian society has been subjected to a sinister political experiment, comparable only to the 1917 Bolshevik insurrection in Saint Petersburg."

"The fact that the statement does not cause resistance among the parliamentary groups of the ruling coalition, raises indignation and repulsion," wrote Krassimir Kanev, Chairman of Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, in an open letter to the president of the National Assembly and the chief prosecutor of Bulgaria.

"Incitement to discrimination, hatred or violence on ethnic grounds is a crime for which Article 162, paragraph 1 of our Criminal Code provides for imprisonment of one to four years. The fact that Mr. Simeonov used the rostrum of the National Assembly for that racist incitement is an aggravating circumstance," said the letter.