September 1, 2010

The Fourth session of the 41st National Assembly has started today. Parliamentary groups’ representatives took the floor to make statements and to present their legislative priorities.

The lawmakers voted the agenda of this week plenary and proceeded to adopting the rules of procedure needed for hearing the prime minister’s report on the EU participation of Bulgaria, due at the beginning of each new six month presidency of the European Union. Deputies agreed to hear the report tomorrow, first on the agenda.

According to the adopted later on rules, the prime minister of the country has to present before the National Assembly a report reflecting the activities of the country in respect to its EU membership during the previous presidency of the EU, along with the priorities for the current one.

The rules provide for one representative of each parliamentary group to make a statement on the report in the course of 10 minutes and up to 5 minutes for the group of the independent members of the parliament. Representatives of Bulgaria in the European Parliament, present in the hall, are entitled to the same right. The procedures envisage for the prime minister to answer the MPs and MEPs who have spoken before. The National Assembly does not vote a decision on the report.

Valentin Nikolov from the PG Ataka took over the leadership of the Anti-Corruption, Conflict of Interests and Parliamentary Ethics Committee. The rotation was announced by the Speaker of the Parliament Tsetska Tsacheva.