According to the PACE post-monitoring procedure, the new rapporteurs of the PACE Monitoring Committee for our country Zsolt Nemeth and Frank Schwabe were on a visit to Bulgaria on 8 and 9 June 2016. Zsolt Nemeth from Hungary is a representative of the group of the European People’s Party and Frank Schwabe from Germany is a representative of the socialists in the Assembly.
The visit was hosted by the Bulgarian Delegation at PACE, led by Dzema Grozdanova. The rapporteurs had talks with the Chairperson of the National Assembly Tsetska Tsacheva, with the Prime Minister Boyko Borisov, with the Vice Prime Ministers Rumiana Bachvarova and Meglena Kuneva, and with the Minister of Foreign Affairs Daniel Mitov. They also met with representatives of non-governmental organizations, ambassadors to Sofia of member states of the Council of Europe, the Ombudsman Maya Manolova, and the Deputy Minister of Justice Krasimira Filipova.
The visit aimed to gather information on the situation in Bulgaria and the progress made on election legislation, the reform in the judiciary, the transparency of media ownership, and the protection of media against external influence. A second visit is due to be made by the PACE rapportuers, probably in November, and after that they will prepare a report to be submitted for review to the Assembly. The PACE monitoring of Bulgaria ended in January 2000. The Assembly made many recommendations to the country then on issues relating to problems whose solution it continued to monitor in a regime of dialogue with the Bulgarian authorities. In 2013 the Assembly limited the subjects for this follow-up dialogue to three.