President Georgi Parvanov imposed a veto on the controversial amendments to the Privatisation Act February 20.

Bulgaria's Economy Ministry will comment the president's veto after it acquaints itself with his motives, novinite.com learnt from the ministry's representatives. The Privatization Agency is only an executive body and cannot comment the decisions of the President, the spokeswoman of the agency said for novinite.com.

The president was given a fifteen-day time window to veto or not the amendments. Should he have failed to exercise his right to return the bill for further consideration by the MPs, the government would have been able to get the act together and push with the sale of tobacco monopoly Bulgartabac.

Fifteen key privatization deals in Bulgaria were exempted from judicial control when Parliament voted conclusively the amendments to the Privatisation Act February 7.

Bulgartabac Holding Company, the Bulgarian Telecommunications Company, seven electricity distribution companies, the Vazov Engineering Works of Sopot, Kintex, Teraton, Balkan Air Tour, the Bulgarian River Shipping Corporation and Navigation Maritime Bulgare are the companies to which the new procedure of privatisation will be applied.

Under the cabinet-moved amendments to the Privatisation Act the Cabinet will select the buyers of companies relevant to national security, will set deadline for conclusion of the contracts, as well as their terms. The successful bidder will be named by the Cabinet and then approved by Parliament.

German and Austrian investors, directly linked to Deutsche Bank, reportedly issued an unofficial warning that they will withdraw should the President veto the act. The investors cited insecurity as the main reason for their decision.

It is rumoured that we plan to withdraw should the president impose veto on the act, but we are instructed by the bank's team not to make any comments on this, a spokesman of Deutsche Bank-London said.

Germany's Embassy in Bulgaria is expected to comment only after President Parvanov announces officially his position.

On January 15 Bulgaria's Privatisation Agency asked only two of the bidders for Bulgartabac, Russia's consortium Rosbulgartabac and Austria's Tobacco Holding GmbH, to confirm the validity of their bids for an 80% stake in Bulgaria's tobacco giant.

The third candidate, Tobacco Capital Partners, which was named preferred buyer of tobacco monopoly, was not mentioned in the statement, which prompted talks it might have been disqualified.

Tobacco Capital Partners was set up exclusively to participate in the privatization procedure of Bulgartabac in consortium with Clar Inns, 100 percent owned by Deutsche Bank.

The Privatization Agency (PA) is expecting the consultant on Bulgartabac deal to prepare and update the data room information on the tobacco monopoly's financial state, PA announced in an official statement.

This will enable the Privatization Agency to invite Austria's Tobacco Holding GmbH and Russia's consortium Rosbulgartabac to get acquainted with the updated data, so that the bidders may improve the offers' parameters.