Bulgaria’s governing axis seeks backtrack on disclosure of former communist-era secret service agents in intelligence services
The Bulgarian Socialist Party, Movement for Rights and Freedoms and Volen Siderov’s ultra-nationalists Ataka are jointly pushing a backtrack on the law on the Dossier Commission, the body charged with exposing former communist-era secret agents in certain positions in public life, that would prevent disclosure of such agents in top posts in Bulgaria’s civil and military intelligence agencies after 1991.
The move is being opposed by Boiko Borissov’s centre-right GERB party, which when in government supported amendments proposed by the right-wing Blue Coalition that enabled the disclosure of the identities of such agents.
At the time, the amendments were opposed by the BSP and its allies, who claimed that such disclosure could “endanger” serving members of Bulgaria’s intelligence services. The 2012 amendment enabled naming of former State Security people at the level of department head and deputy department head in the current intelligence services.
After the amendments reversing the previous change were approved by the parliamentary committee on internal security and public order with the backing of the BSP, MRF and Ataka, GERB leader Borissov sought support from parties outside Parliament, along with other organisations, to campaign against the backtrack.
GERB said in a media statement that Borissov had sent a letter to the political formations of the Reformist Bloc, the Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria and the Union of Democratic Forces, members of the EU-level European People’s Party and the Union of the Repressed.
Doing away with the amendment that enabled disclosure of former State Security people in the intelligence services after 1991 would be contrary to democratic values, Borissov said.
He said that he was confident that political forces that share the values of the European People’s Party could “develop synergies” to campaign against the new amendments. “This is because the truth about the totalitarian period is the best guarantee that unfreedom will not happen again,” Borissov said.
The move to do away with disclosure of State Security people in the post-1991 intelligence services was aimed at “deliberately concealing the relationships that are absolutely unacceptable in a modern democracy”.
(Photo: Christa Richert/sxc.hu)
