Bulgarian Constitutional Court rejects President’s bid to annul Speaker’s decision on euro referendum
Bulgaria’s Constitutional Court has declined to grant President Roumen Radev’s request to annul a decision by the Speaker of the National Assembly, Natalia Kiselova, which denied Radev’s proposal for a national referendum on the introduction of the euro.
Radev asked the court for interpretation of the constitution, namely whether Parliament is required to rule on his referendum proposal and whether the Speaker has the power to assess the legality of such a proposal. He also requested that the Constitutional Court invalidate the Speaker’s decision.
The court sat on June 10 to deliberate the admissibility of Radev’s request and ruled that only the second question, regarding the Speaker’s authority, was admissible.
It ruled that the question on whether Parliament was required to debate his referendum proposal was inadmissible and said that the annulment request was also inadmissible.
The court did not make the motives for its ruling immediately available.
Radev announced on May 9 his intention to table the request for a vote on a referendum on the euro, sparking controversy, with a large majority of MPs opposed to holding such a referendum, including on the grounds that to do so would be unconstitutional.
Radev has argued that his proposal was focused specifically on the timing of the euro accession in 2026, implying that this was a substantial enough difference to not clash with a 2024 Constitutional Court decision that a referendum on the euro is constitutionally unacceptable.
Last week, convergence reports published by the European Commission and European Central Bank said that Bulgaria was ready to introduce the euro starting January 1 2026.
(Photo: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
