Members of Bulgaria's Cabinet and the leaderships of ruling Simeon II National Movement and its junior coalition partner the Movement for Rights and Freedoms failed to reach a definitive stand on the future privatisation of Bulgaria's tobacco monopoly Bulgartabac. Different variants for Bulgartabac privatisation were discussed at the several -hour meeting. Another meeting will most probably be held on January 21, Dimitur Tsonev, spokesman of the government, said. He specified that the format of the meeting is still to be fixed.

The meeting on January 20 comes days after Bulgaria's Privatisation Agency asked only Russia's consortium Rosbulgartabac and Austria's Tobacco Holding Gmb to confirm the validity of their bids for an 80% stake in Bulgaria's tobacco giant. The third candidate, Tobacco Capital Partners, was not mentioned in the statement.

Last week Ahmed Dogan, leader of the Turks ethnic party Movement for Rights and Freedoms, said it was time for lawmakers to take a decision on Bulgartabac privatisation. In the opinion of Yunal Tassim, MP of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, and Valeri Dimitrov, chair of the parliamentary economic committee, there are no obstacles for Bulgaria's tobacco giant privatisation to be concluded with the participation of Deutsche Bank.

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