site.btaUPDATED Vazrazhdane's Foreign Agents Registration Bill Killed on First Reading

A Foreign Agents Registration Bill moved by the Vazrazhdane parliamentary group was defeated by the National Assembly on first reading on Wednesday by a vote of 38-112 and 48 abstentions.

The bill was supported by all MPs of Vazrazhdane and four of BSP-United Left, while GERB-UDF (53 MPs), Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) and Movement for Rights and Freedoms – New Beginning (MRF-New Beginning) voted against. Those who abstained from voting were seven members of GERB-UDF, six of BSP-United Left, and the parliamentary groups of Democracy, Rights and Freedoms, There Is Such a People, and MECh.

What the bill was about

The bill proposed that all people in Bulgaria who have received or are receiving foreign funding should be registered. It envisioned that the Justice Ministry would keep a public electronic register of foreign agents, who would have 15 days to declare that they receive foreign funding after such funding reached BGN 1,000.

Vazrazhdane reasoned that the bill would ensure transparency of the funding of individuals and organizations that provide information to the public and shape public opinion while at the same time serving as conduits of foreign state or corporate interests in Bulgaria.

During the three-hour debate on the proposed legislation, Vazrazhdane leader Kostadin Kostadinov argued that the proposed law is extremely important and should be adopted promptly. Noting that it is impossible to assess the overall foreign influence in Bulgaria, he said: "According to information from no one less than the United States Administration under the new president, President Trump, we have had USD 431 million in funding over the last four years." He added that the sum is equivalent to about BGN 800 million.

This does not include the funding from the America for Bulgaria Foundation, the EEA and Norway Grants, and "the Soros money," Kostadinov said. "Interestingly, part of this huge amount of money was provided for propaganda against US politicians who were deemed inconvenient. For instance, there were 1,344 negative news items related to Donald Trump over a period of two years," he said. He listed Capital, Club Z, Mediapool and Dnevnik, "among many others," as news outlets that promote foreign influence in Bulgaria.

The debate

Kostadinov said the CC-DB coalition "is the main product of American political engineering in Bulgaria," which has absorbed BGN 1 billion in direct or indirect investments over the last four years.

"Stop lying, there was no such thing as BGN 800 million," Kiril Petkov (CC-DB) said, reacting to Kostadinov's remarks. "You may want us to be another Georgia, but we will not be another Georgia."

Tsoncho Ganev (Vazrazhdane) said the bill does not seek to prohibit political parties and mass communication media from receiving money from the United States. All it will do is require foreign agents to declare themselves as such, the way they are required in the US, Ganev said.

Bozhidar Bozhanov (CC-DB) said the parties in his coalition are not funded by foreign governments or NGOs. "The donations which Yes Bulgaria!, Continue the Change, and Democrats for Strong Bulgaria have received are in full compliance with the law and have been declared to the National Audit Office," Bozhanov said. "What is really disturbing is the money provided non-publicly, covertly, to promote foreign interests such as those of the Russian Federation and China."

Yordan Tsonev (MRF-New Beginning) said that the foreign agents whom Vazrazhdane want to bring to light have long been in the light. "What we need is to shed light on how the money was used," he suggested.

Things get ugly

Manol Peikov (CC-DB) said the bill comes very close to his idea of pure evil. He described it as "an assault on civil society, an attempt to crack down on civil society after the fashion of Russia." Peikov said Russia has become another Mordor (R. R. Tolkien's fictional continent, the Land of Shadow) which has a proxy in Bulgaria.

Complaining of insults against Vazrazhdane, the party's Daniel Petrov asked National Assembly Chair Nataliya Kiselova to punish Peikov with an official reprimand.

Daniel Lorer (CC-DB) said that Vazrazhdane's claim that they borrowed the bill from US legislation is a lie. Lorer said: "This law was borrowed from Russia. An identical text passed in the Russian Duma in 2012. You have moved Putin's law to this Parliament four times."

After MPs traded spontaneous accusations without even bothering to come to the rostrum, National Assembly Deputy Chair Nikoleta Kuzmanova, who was presiding over the parliamentary sitting at that moment, reminded the MPs that there were children in the chamber who were guests of the legislature on Wednesday. Kostadin Kostadinov took the opportunity to advise the schoolkids: "Never let thieves and liars get away with impunity."

Kostasdinov called CC-DB "a tumour" which Vazrazhdane will remove. This sparked an altercation between him and Ivaylo Mirchev (DB). The administrators intervened, and a break ensued.

In a comment to journalists later in the day, Kostadinov said the bill was rejected by "a coalition of foreign agents." "I was pleased to see four MPs of BSP-United Left vote in favour, which showed that there are honest people even among the ruling majority," he said.