site.btaGERB Presents Security Governance Programme

Sofia, July 31 (BTA) - By September, GERB's security legislation package, including an Interior Ministry bill, will be ready, said GERB deputy leader Tsvetan Tsvetanov on Thursday. He was speaking at a forum to present GERB's governance programme in the security sector between 2014 and 2018.

The forum is organized by the Citizens Association for the European Development of Bulgaria and the Hanns Seidel Foundation. It was attended by former German federal interior minister (2011-2013) and deputy leader of the CDU/CSU Bundestag faction Hans-Peter Friedrich.

Tsvetan Tsvetanov recalled that the security legislation package was prepared by GERB during the life of the 41st National Assembly, but was not adopted due the resignation of the Boyko Borissov government. Tsvetanov said that although the package was among the first bills tabled by GERB in the 42nd National Assembly in May 2013, it did not make Parliament's legislative agenda.

Tsvetanov said that the main goal of a future GERB government will be to reverse the Yovchev-Bisserov reform of 2013 and 2014, which was implemented forcefully without consensus between the parliamentary parties.

Among the programme's highlights, Tsvetanov noted taking out the special surveillance unit out of the State Agency for National Security (SANS) and merging with the State Agency for Technical Operations. Bulgaria is not a rich country to maintain two identical units, Tsvetanov argued. He said that the Chief Directorate for Combating Organized Crime should be taken out of SANS too.

Tsvetanov criticized a report on the activities of the State Agency for National Security released on Wednesday, which catalogues police operations and does not propose measures to tackle the banking crisis or the effects of South Stream. In his words, the report should have taken stock of possible implications of the government's pro- South Stream position.

GERB's security agenda will include establishing an independent counterintelligence service, divesting SANS of all police and investigative functions, restoring competitions in police career development and phasing them in all security services.

In order to tackle conventional crime, GERB plan to expand the network of surveillance cameras to smaller settlements and establish municipal police units in cooperation with local authorities.