Bulgarian Parliament bars presidential administration from using National Protection Service vehicles

In its latest move against head of state President Roumen Radev, the ruling majority in Bulgaria’s Parliament voted legislative amendments on October 3 to bar the presidential administration from using National Protection Service vehicles.

Approval at second reading of the amendments to the National Protection Service Act, tabled by former interior minister Kalin Stoyanov of Magnitsky Act-sanctioned Delyan Peevski’s Movement for Rights and Freedoms – New Beginning group, came a day after Parliament voted to remove the President’s role in the appointment of the head of the State Agency for National Security.

Stoyanov tabled the amendments after objecting to Radev’s use of a large motorcade during an event in Varna in August.

A proposal by We Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (WCC-DB), Parliament’s largest opposition group, to also deprive MPs of the use of National Protection Service cars, was – as had been expected – defeated.

The WCC-DB proposal was directed at Peevski, who moves with a phalanx of National Protection Service personnel and vehicles.

WCC-DB’s Ivailo Mirchev asked: “What requires half the services, half the Ministry of Interior to deal with Peevski and close boulevards when he passes. And why is it not said how much this costs the Bulgarian state every month?”.

Boiko Borissov’s GERB-UDF group, supporting the amendments, said that they did not mean that the President’s National Protection Service security was being taken away, but removed “the possibility for worthy officers to be taxi drivers for the administration”.

Borissov said that next year, the presidential administration would be voted a budget to buy vehicles.

(Archive photo, of a National Protection Service convoy during the visit to Bulgaria by Pope Francis: National Protection Service)