A delegation of the Committee on Education, Science, Culture, Human Rights and Petitions to the Czech Senate, led by the chairman Jaromír Jermar is on a visit to Bulgaria. The Czech parliamentarians have met with the president of the National Assembly Tsetska Tsacheva and with members of various parliamentary committees. They were welcomed in the plenary hall.

During the talks President Tsetska Tsacheva has noted the traditionally good relations between Bulgaria and the Czech Republic. She pointed to the historic connections between the two Slavic people and that the Czech Republic was the land where the tomb of the Slavic script founder Methodius is being kept. She reminded about the delegation’s visit she headed back in 2010 in the Czech town of Mikulchitse, where supposedly Methodius had died.

The chairman of the Committee on Education, Science, Culture, Human Rights and Petitions to the Czech Republic Senate, Jaromír Jermar noticed that the members of the two countries’ parliaments bear not only the responsibility for the bilateral relations but for the processes taking place in the European Union. Tsetska Tsacheva expressed her confidence that the values, on which the European Union is based, have no alternatives.

The chair of the Committee on Education, Science, Culture, Human Rights and Petitions to the Czech Republic Senate, Jaromír Jermar, noticed that the only solution to the problems of the EU was in pursuing mutual cooperation. The Czech deputies have shown interest at the participation of women in the Bulgarian parliament and at the electoral system of Bulgaria. Tsetska Tsacheva stressed that 39 Members of the Parliament were women, as were many chairpersons of some of the most important parliamentary committees –of legal affairs, budget, environment, agriculture, healthcare, culture, civil society and media, European affairs and European funds oversight. She informed the guests on the Electoral Code adopted by the 41st National Assembly.

The Czech deputies had meetings with the chairperson of the Bulgarian Human rights, religious denominations and petitions committee Yordan Bakalov, with Education, science, children, youth and sports committee chairman Ognyan Stoichkov and the chairperson of the committee on Culture and civil society Daniela Petrova.

Yordan Bakalov informed the guests that his committee receives around 1300 complaints and petitions annually. The Czech guest said that the Senate of the Czech Republic is considering amendments to the present act on petitions, adopted back in 1990.

Ognyan Stoichkov acquainted his Czech counterparts with the new law on preschool and school education, saying the current law was adopted 20 years ago. The new legislation, he added, will cover 800 000 children and their parents, or one third of Bulgaria’s population.

The Czech parliamentarians took particular interest in the provisions of the Bulgarian law on the cultural monuments as their parliament is in the process of drawing a new law in this respect. Daniela Petrova explained that Bulgaria is proceeding with the registration of all cultural monuments.