site.btaExtraordinary Sitting of National Assembly Scheduled for 12 p.m. Friday

An extraordinary sitting of the National Assembly is scheduled to be held at 12 p.m. on Friday. The first item on the agenda includes a new discussion on the amendments to the Energy Act envisaging a liberalization of the electricity market for household end-users.

On October 19, President Rumen Radev vetoed the amendments. The head of State argues in his reasons that, without disputing the need to align domestic legislation to the commitments assumed by Bulgaria to the EU, the full liberalization of the electricity market for household users by 2026, envisaged by the law, does not provide for protection of energy-poor and vulnerable users which EU law enables and requires.

Of the six parliamentary groups, three (GERB-UDF, the Movement for Rights and Freedoms and There Is Such a People) are expected to turn up in the debating chamber on Friday. Combined, their MPs number 116, five short of the 121 MP quorum required for a sitting to take place. Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria, Vazrazhdane and BSP for Bulgaria have declared that they will boycott the sitting.

The sitting will be opened if more than half of the total of 240 MPs (at least 121 members) are present.