Bulgaria
Recent developments
in Bulgaria have demonstrated both the capacity of the president to shape
the national political process as well as the hidden tensions which his
interventions may precipitate. While the overall stability of the country's
institutional framework remains intact, a new patterning of relations
between key political actors is beginning to emerge.
The importance of the presidency
was demonstrated recently when NATO requested permission for its warplanes
to pass through Bulgarian airspace. Deliberations on this issue took place
neither in the Council of Ministers nor in the Narodno Sabranie (National
Assembly, or parliament) but at a special session of the Consultative
National Security Council, a body chaired by President Petar Stoyanov
(Art. 100.3). When the decision to approve NATO's request was finally
announced, on October 10, leaders of the opposition Bulgarian Socialist
Party (BSP) questioned its legitimacy and argued that the matter falls
within parliament's jurisdiction. (In addition, prominent BSP members
sent a letter of apology to Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic.) Stoyanov,
however, argued that the council provides a forum for political discussions
on urgent issues pertaining to national security and therefore may adopt
decisions that, later, should be submitted to the deputies for ratification.
The council's functions are not clearly specified in the Constitution
or in a law, but, as in the past, it has served as a forum for resolving
matters pertaining to national security. (For example, it was during council
deliberations that BSP's nominee for prime minister, Nikolai Dobrev, announced
that he would return his mandate to form a government during the political
crisis of February 1997. See Bulgaria Update, EECR, Vol. 6, No.
1, Winter 1997.) Moreover, neither Stoyanov nor the prime minister is
constitutionally prohibited from discussing a matter in whatever institutional
setting they choose. They are merely required to seek subsequent approval
by parliament. Soon thereafter, all parliamentary parties except BSP voted
to approve the council's resolution.
After almost two years of
deliberations, parliament finally passed, in September, the controversial
laws on judicial power and on the media. (See Bulgaria Update, EECR,
Vol. 7, No. 3, Summer 1998.) Rather than bringing the controversies surrounding
this legislation to a close, however, the passage of the two bills triggered
a new round of arguments. For the first time, Stoyanov exercised his veto
power in order to block laws passed by his own party, the Union of the
Democratic Forces (UDF), and some of the provisions of the new laws were
subsequently appealed to the Constitutional Court. According to Art. 101
of the Constitution, "the President is free to return a bill together
with his motives to the National Assembly for further debate, which shall
not be denied. The repeated passage of such a bill shall require a majority
of more than half of all members of the National Assembly."