A special panel, investigating Bulgaria's communist-era police files, will release by the end of the year the names of agents and collaborators, who have been members of the country's governments since 1991.

"The list has already been prepared and features the names of 673 people, including prime ministers, ministers and their deputies," Evtim Kostadinov, head of the commission that screens the past of the political elite, told the Bulgarian National Radio.

The commission, set up in April, is 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.

At the beginning of September the special panel released the names of 138 agents and collaborators to the secret services, who have been members of Bulgaria's parliaments since the collapse of the communist regime in 1989. Also on the list were the names of president Georgi Parvanov and 19 current members of parliament.

Bulgaria's Socialist President Georgi Parvanov was exposed as state security collaborator for the first time at the end of July, six out of 218 runners in Bulgaria's first MEP elections were earlier revealed to have murky past, along with three former constitutional judges and fifteen supreme magistrates and investigators.

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.

We need your support so Novinite.com can keep delivering news and information about Bulgaria! Thank you!