October 28, 2009


The National Assembly adopted at the sitting on October 28, 2009, on second reading, amendments to the Electronic Communications Act, tabled by the Council of Ministers. They stipulate the non application of the Act when electronic communications are used by government authorities and their administrations in relation to the national security and by the Council of Ministers for its proper needs.
The Minister of Transport, Communications and Information Technology represents a specialized body of the executive branch of power, which implements the state policy on electronic communications in the field of information society. The Act provides that he is obliged to create conditions for ensuring the freedom and privacy of communications.

The Parliament ratified the Treaty for the supply of data on the part of the European Union Data Center for Long-Range Identification and Tracking of Ships / LRIT / to the Bulgarian Executive Agency "Maritime Administration". The listing of all ships floating under the flag of any country into the system of LRIT, is governed by a contract concluded between each of the countries in the European Union with the European Maritime Safety Agency. The document requires a financial commitment on behalf of the Bulgarian authorities to the above European Agency in the amount of € 3000.

MPs prolonged with four months the terms of office of the parliamentary Ad Hoc Committee, charged with verification of the expenditures, appointments and transactions held over the last year of the mandate of Sergey Stanishev’s government. This was deemed necessary because of the large volume and complexity of the documents that must be checked.

The Parliament extended also, by one month, the period of work of the Ad-Hoc Committee in charge of checking the signals for distortions of the general elections held on July 5, 2009. The previous deadline for submission of the report was November 2, 2009. According to the committee chairman Yavor Notev, the arguments were that such verification is really difficult due to the volume of information that needs to be checked.

The National Assembly began the first reading of amendments to the Value Added Tax Act, moved by the Council of Ministers. They intend to change the deadline for claiming back tax credit deductions - of three months before, the term is to become 12-months.