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The cases and inspections related to Prime Minister Boyko Borissov have been thoroughly worked out and all possible and necessary measures have been taken. This is the response of Chief Prosecutor Ivan Geshev to the next round of questions from MEPs from the democracy, rule of law and fundamental rights monitoring subgroup, reports Sega.
A series of key questions related to the failed attempt to adopt a new constitution, the enormous powers of the attorney general, the investigation of the case known as “Barcelonagate”, the recordings of Prime Minister Boyko Borissov and the photos of his bedroom were requested by the Working group Monitoring group on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights of the European Parliament. Questions were addressed directly and in person in some of the scandalous cases last year. The group is part of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), but does not speak on behalf of that committee and is tasked with conducting investigations, investigations and gathering information. On January 8 he sent a total of 14 questions to the Bulgarian authorities, which were directed to the Minister of Justice and the Attorney General and their deputies.
Responses explain that even the Attorney General cannot disclose information about pre-trial proceedings without the permission of the supervising prosecutor. However, it is clear from them that the “Barcelonagate” case is practically paralyzed. The Prosecutor’s Office alleges that there is no new information on the information given to the MEPs in September 2020. Then he explained that after a signal from “Movimiento Civil BOEC” to the attorney general, the Special Prosecutor’s Office has started a file on the publication in the Spanish newspaper “El Newspaper”. The explanations were taken by the persons indicated on the signal (including Prime Minister Boyko Borissov), tax audits and inspections of natural and legal persons were assigned.
In the case of the photos and video of the prime minister’s room, absolutely all possible and necessary actions were taken and the investigation was stopped due to the non-disclosure of the perpetrator, the prosecutor’s office wrote. Regarding the inspection of the audio recordings, the Prosecutor’s Office informed the EP that an in-depth analysis found that there were no indications of a crime.
The power to rule on a specific procedural act under the supervision of legality is used only in exceptional cases, Geshev explains. The prosecutor’s office gives an example of how in 2019 the chief prosecutor (then Sotir Tsatsarov – editor’s note) reversed the termination of an investigation in only 8 out of 36 cases. And in 2020 (now Ivan Geshev) out of 28 cases, the chief prosecutor respected only 9, without giving written instructions on the actions of the investigations. There are many legal guarantees that the powers of the attorney general are not absolute, Geshev added.
The government explained to the EP that it had adopted a plan to implement measures to address the challenges outlined in the EC report on the rule of law in Bulgaria. Measures were envisaged to “increase the efficiency of investigations of corruption offenses and achieve stronger results in terms of final convictions in this matter.”
It also boasts of changes to the Code of Criminal Procedure, which introduced a special prosecutor to deal only with the investigation of the chief and his deputies.
The government also responded that information on media ownership and financing was published in a public registry maintained by the Ministry of Culture. The Ministry acts as depositary of the declarations presented. “Securing advertising is not related to conducting analysis, and the Ministry of Culture cannot provide a list of media that are fully or partially supported by EU funds,” the responses said.
For the golden passports that Bulgaria continues to distribute despite the risk of criminal proceedings, the responses report that the country does not really intend to give up and the law has been changed for better control. “Proposals to completely eliminate the possibility of acquiring Bulgarian citizenship by naturalization have not been discussed for people who have made investments in Bulgaria. The aim is to strike a balance and, on the one hand, we want to give a clear signal to the European Commission that We are going to put an end to the bad practices of obtaining citizenship in the face of investments, especially those that are not supported.Unfortunately, we have witnessed such bad practices over the years, on the other hand, we want, if possible, to reach a consensus, not to limit the investment opportunity in the country, since we are currently facing an unprecedented health crisis in both the financial and economic crises, so we want to see if we can achieve that balance by trying to deepen the possibility of obtain the right of residence of foreigners against investment, against a much stronger control by the competent authorities ” n the authorities.
