Bulgarian pro-Kremlin minority party’s ‘foreign agents’ bill defeated in committee
A bill tabled by Bulgarian minority pro-Kremlin party Vuzrazhdane that would create a registry of “foreign agents” – in a move denounced by critics as intended to stifle media freedom and civil society as a whole – was rejected at first reading by Parliament’s committee on culture and media on September 19.
The vote was six against, two in favour, with two abstentions.
Vuzrazhdane has tabled the bill in three of Bulgaria’s previous Parliaments, ending in defeat each time.
Buoyed by its success in getting homophobic legislation on schools approved by the current Parliament in August, Vuzrazhdane tabled the bill again on September 10.
The chairperson of the culture and media committee, Angel Yanchev, is from Vuzrazhdane and put it on the committee’s agenda.
The bill provides for mandatory registration of all persons and organisations, including politicians, political parties and media organisations, that receive foreign funding “in order to ensure full transparency and publicity of the sources of these funds and the purposes for which they are used”.
Vuzrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov repeatedly has claimed that the bill is based on 1940s United States legislation.
This week, that claim was fact-checked by public broadcaster Bulgarian National Television (BNT), which did a side-by-side comparison with Vuzrazhdane’s draft bill, the 1940s US legislation and the law in Putin’s Russia on “foreign agents”.
BNT established that Vuzrazhdane’s claim that the bill is similar to US law is unfounded and that, “in spirit”, it resembles the law in Putin’s Russia.
“When someone is registered as a foreign agent, according to the Vuzrazhdane bill, he must mark every publication, picture, catalogue, drawing, business card, sheet music, any material he creates with a large inscription on the title page – foreign agent. Just like in Russia,” BNT said.
In both Bulgaria and Russia, those registered as agents would not have the right to work in educational institutions, including kindergartens, universities, and certain ministries. There was no such provision in US law, BNT reported.
At the committee meeting, Kostadinov alleged that BNT was “lying”.
The bill was the subject of a petition by 160 NGOs against it, while the European Commission was reported to be observing developments around the bill with concern.
Russian-style legislation of this type already has been a setback for Georgia’s EU accession prospects.
Defeat of the bill had seemed inevitable, given that the GERB-UDF, We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria and Movement for Rights and Freedoms parliamentary groups already had said publicly that they would vote against it.
Backers of the bill largely seek to demonise the America for Bulgaria Foundation and repeatedly insist that Bulgaria is “run from the US embassy”.
In debate in the committee, GERB-UDF MP Toma Bikov said that the bill would not achieve, for example, establishing if someone was taking money covertly from the Russian embassy.
In a photo frequently shared on social networks, Kostadinov and other Vuzrazhdane figures are seen in the company of Russian ambassador Eleonora Mitrofanova at Moscow’s embassy in Sofia.
Lyuben Dilov Jnr, also of GERB-UDF, said that if anyone wanted to see sources of funding of media organisations, they could look in the existing media funding declarations lodged with the Culture Ministry every year, and in the Commercial Register.
Kostadinov said that those opposing the bill were “afraid of transparency”.
He told the meeting that he did not expect the bill to be approved “in this Parliament”. Bulgaria heads to its latest early parliamentary elections on October 27, to vote in the country’s 51st National Assembly.
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