Bulgaria’s ruling Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB) will not back the adoption of a European treaty intended to combat violence against women as it would cost them the support of their junior coalition partner – the far-right nationalistic United Patriots – and is also opposed by the opposition parties in the parliament, Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said.

Backing off from the treaty will secure Borissov stability within the ruling coalition, which has been seriously hit by a series of scandals since the beginning of the year when Bulgaria assumed the rotating EU Council chairmanship.

The treaty, also known as the Istanbul Convention, was signed by Bulgaria in 2016, but it has not been ratified by the National Assembly in Sofia. Its purpose is to protect women against all forms of violence, and prevent, prosecute and eliminate violence against women and domestic violence.

However, all political parties in the parliament, as well as the Bulgarian Orthodox church and nationalist organisations, strongly opposed its adoption, claiming that it will allow the introduction of a “third sex” and same-sex marriages.

“I, as the leader of GERB, will order my MPs not to deal with the convention, until we sit down again and say which texts are good,” Borissov said in an interview for bTV.

He explained also that he will order GERB to remove it from the parliament’s agenda as the convention has provoked fears, lies and xenophobia among the population.

“We shall adopt the Istanbul convention only if there is a full consensus in society,” Borissov said.

Debates on the convention have escalated into mass denial as politicians saw the use of the word “gender” in the context of “social roles, behaviours, activities and characteristics that a particular society considers appropriate for women and men” as indicating the recognition of a "third sex".

In Bulgarian, the word “gender” was translated using the word for “sex” - the biological difference between a man and a woman, which has raised worries among more conservative people, fuelled by nationalist statements about a "European plot" aimed at destroying traditional values.