Bulgarian MPs overturn veto on bill giving expanded powers for Lukoil special administrator
Bulgaria’s National Assembly voted on November 13 to overturn President Roumen Radev’s veto on amendments to the country’s law regulating operations in the oil and oil products industry, which expanded the powers of special representatives appointed to manage assets deemed of critical importance.
There were 128 votes in favour of overriding the veto, 59 opposed, and no abstentions.
Parliament moved unusually swiftly to override Radev’s veto, imposed a day earlier, holding a sitting of the energy committee to discuss the presidential decree late on November 12 and amending the order paper to put the motion to overturn the veto on the National Assembly’s schedule.
The vote clears the way for Bulgaria’s Cabinet to appoint a special administrator in the Lukoil Neftochim oil refinery in Bourgas as soon as the bill is published in the State Gazette, which could be as early as November 14.
Although the amendments at no point refer to the assets of Russian oil major Lukoil, which owns Lukoil Neftochim and an extensive network of petrol stations through Lukoil Bulgaria, the motives tabled by the bill’s sponsors specifically pointed out that the changes were aimed specifically at those companies.
Lukoil became subject of US sanctions last month, but the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) gave affected companies until November 21 to carry out all necessary transactions and transfers, setting a hard deadline for Bulgarian authorities to find a way for the refinery to continue operations.
Radev said in his veto motives that the bill legislated the indirect nationalisation of companies and the possibility that they could be then transferred to third parties, which “opens wide the door to arbitrariness and malfeasance”, breaching a number of constitutional principles and international legal norms.
Bulgaria’s constitution grants the head of state a limited power of veto, through enabling the President to return legislation to the National Assembly for further discussion.
The National Assembly may overturn the President’s veto through a simple majority vote or accept the veto and review the vetoed clauses. Since taking office in January 2017, Radev made liberal use of the power and this was his 46th vetoed bill.
The National Assembly overturned the veto on all but eight occasions – seven times the veto was accepted by MPs and, in the other case, the government coalition at the time failed to muster the support needed to overturn it.
(National Assembly building. Photo: parliament.bg)
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