01/10/2025 Session
At its plenary session in Strasbourg, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) decided today to close the post-monitoring dialogue with Bulgaria and to follow the developments in the country in the framework of its periodic reviews.
It welcomed the fact that Bulgaria had overcome the political crisis and instability – illustrated by seven consecutive early parliamentary elections held between 2021 and 2024 – and the establishment of a coalition government in January 2025 that demonstrates “sustained political will to honour the commitments and obligations reflected in PACE Resolution 2296 (2019)”, in co-operation with Council of Europe monitoring mechanisms.
The Parliamentary Assembly also welcomed the reform of the Criminal Procedure Code and the constitutional amendments limiting the powers of the Prosecutor's Office, the measures taken to combat high-level corruption and the adoption of the Anti-Corruption Act, the adoption of the Law on the Protection of Whistleblowers and the amendments to the Law on Public Procurement aimed at ensuring more transparency.
By adopting a resolution based on the report by Deborah Bergamini (Italy, EPP/CD) and Yves Cruchten (Luxembourg, SOC), PACE underlined that Bulgaria had “considerably improved its framework as regards freedom of expression” and taken a number of measures to combat hate speech and violence against women.
However, despite authorities’ efforts, the parliamentarians note that the reform of the judiciary and the Prosecutor's Office has only been partially implemented and regret that it has since been halted as a result of the Constitutional Court’s ruling on 26 July 2024. They called on the authorities to resume the reform of the organisation of the State through the adoption of ordinary legislation and/or new constitutional amendments by the Grand National Assembly.
In addition, the Parliamentary Assembly remains concerned “about the fragile situation of the Roma population” and urged the authorities to pursue their efforts to integrate and include this population.
Finally, PACE called on the authorities to “continue to co-operate with the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe with a view to making tangible progress in the execution of the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights”, in particular as regards cases concerning the reform of the judiciary, forced evictions and demolition of houses of Roma, and refusals to register associations of persons asserting Macedonian ethnic consciousness.
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Bulgaria joined the Council of Europe in 1992. Until 2000, it was subject to the full monitoring procedure. By means of Resolution 1211 (2000), the Parliamentary Assembly decided, to close the full monitoring procedure and open a post-monitoring dialogue on a number of outstanding concerns, systematically assessing the progress made.