In a highly controversial move, Bulgaria's parliament decided not to make public the secret files of people when the national security or their lives are endangered.

All documents related to the former State security service in these cases will be made available only by the personal approval of the head of a special commission. He will also be the person to decide which these cases are, under the amended bill that parliament voted at second reading on Wednesday.

Under the revised text, untouched will stay files of chiefs of sectors and departments at the national military reconnaissance, intelligence and counter-intelligence services who were and have been on duty since 16 July 1991. The unclosed files will be kept in a new files archive, due to be set up.

The bill was greenlighted with 107 votes of the majority, 42 MPs voted against and 9 abstained.

Most furious of all was the right-wing opposition, who claimed the article in the bill was approved under the pressure of leftist President Georgi Parvanov and his allies.

"Who could be this mythic personality, who will be given the power to spell the fate of an archive that will not even be published?", rhetorically asked Nikolay Mihaylov, MP from the hard-line right-wingers of Democrats for Strong Bulgaria.

Earlier in the week the MPs decided that all public officials in Bulgaria should have their secret files opened, if any are kept with the former communist services.

The new law seeks to reveal ministers, lawmakers, magistrates, district governors, army or civil military officials, journalists, etc. who collaborated with the ex-services of Bulgaria.

The initial wording put forward by Socialist MP Tatyana Doncheva exempted Bulgaria's diplomats abroad. However, Doncheva pulled back the proposed motion on Wednesday, when the bill was put to the final vote.

The debate over whether the secret past of ambassadors and special services chiefs should be made public turned into a stumbling block for the vote of the bill in parliament last week.

Proponents of the complete release of the secret files said this will in no way threaten the national security. Critics claimed the archives should be opened, but judiciously as a complete release would unjustly discredit people from the upper echelons.

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