А special panel, investigating Bulgaria's communist-era police files, said it has exposed 3800 Bulgarian nationals as state security agents and collaborators since its establishment four years ago.

A total of 102 000 files prepared by the country's intelligence services before the fall of the communist regime have been checked by the so-called Files Commission, while another 10,000 Bulgarians were given access to their own dossiers.

The blacklist of former state security agents and collaborators features Socialist President Georgi Parvanov, MPs, former constitutional judges, supreme magistrates, investigators, members of parliament, prominent and well-known former and current Bulgarian journalists.

The files of the former Committee for State Security are a thorny issue in Bulgaria, especially when it comes to the past of high-ranking officials.

Bulgaria's communist-era security service is believed to have remained potent after the fall of communism with the ex-operatives closely linked to the political and business establishment.

For years on end Bulgaria's politicians have been inching towards a further opening of the files, producing only unsatisfactory and politically compromised results.

A partial opening of the files under an anti-communist government in 1997 first gave over 25,000 Bulgarians access to their own dossiers, and led to the naming of around 150 state security collaborators. A parliamentary commission identified several MPs, ministers and candidates for public office as former agents.

However, in 2002 new legislation on access to information gave the power to declassify files to the successor bodies of the communist-era intelligence services. As a result, little progress was made in the direction of declassification.

More effective solutions were sought in the years afterwards and culminated in the establishment of the Files Commission in April 2007 as part of Bulgaria's long overdue efforts to finally face up to its totalitarian past and disclose who did what for the secret police under communism.

Bulgaria's Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has vowed to deal with the issue of communist-era secrets in a conclusive manner and fulfill hopes for a full and final declassification of the file.

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