Vesselin Zhelev

waz.euobserver.com

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borisov and President Georgi Parvanov have clashed over the future of the country's foreign diplomats.

Mr Borisov wants to replace half of Bulgaria's ambassadors abroad following the revelation by a state commission on Communist-era archives that they had once worked for the regime's security services.

But Mr Parvanov, who is in charge of ambassadorial appointments, has refused to recall the diplomats, saying Bulgaria owes them its admission into the EU and Nato.

The scandal is snowballing as Bulgaria, along with Balkan neighbour Romania, is vying for admission to the border-free Schengen zone. France and the Netherlands have said the two countries are not yet ready to join.

Schengen membership requires approval from all 27 EU interior ministers after a candidate state demonstrates it matches a list of technical criteria. The political decision about such an admission would show how much EU partners trust the respective country's law-enforcement and security bodies.

The controversy is also threatening to paralyse Bulgarian diplomacy, because replacing so many ambassadors is difficult given the length of service the law requires for this position.

It also is likely to entail months of litigation in the constitutional court where Mr Parvanov may challenge Mr Borisov's decision.

Mr Borisov is vulnerable because one of his ministers and a handful of regional governors appointed by him have already been exposed as former Communist-era spies.

The prime minister, a former senior policeman, started his career in the Communist interior ministry and has a degree from the Communist police academy. After the fall of the regime in 1989, he established a security firm, one of the clients of which was the deposed Communist dictator Todor Zhivkov who enjoyed Mr Borisov's services until his death in 1998.

As prime minister, Mr Borisov has already once praised Mr Zhivkov in public about the Soviet-type industry and infrastructure which were built under the latter's 35-year tenure. As his praise drew angry outcry at home, Mr Borisov explained that his words has been "taken out of context".

Of a total of 109 Bulgarian diplomatic missions abroad, 45 are currently headed by former agents of the former Committee on State Security, the umbrella body of Communist secret services, according to a report by the state commission on declassification of Communist-era archives released on 14 December.

The law requires gradual screening of all public officials about their previous links to the secret services but it envisions no lustration (the practice of limiting the participation of former Communists), meaning that former spies keep their current positions.

The diplomats in question have worked primarily for Bulgaria's intelligence and military intelligence, the report showed. They include 33 ambassadors and permanent representatives, eight charge d'affaires, four general consuls and seven foreign ministry directors.

Ambassadors with a spy background currently represent Bulgaria in 13 EU capitals including Athens, Berlin, Bucharest, London, Rome, Paris and Stockholm. Such officials also hold ambassadorial positions in Japan, Russia, Turkey and the Vatican.

"We must not let them take their positions any more, this is our decision," said Mr Borisov. He blamed the appointments on the previous government.

"If Todor Zhivkov has been a good statesman, why should the ambassadors and diplomats from his tenure be bad?" asked Mr Parvanov, alluding to Mr Borisov's praise for Mr Zhivkov.

"It's they, not the present government, that made it possible for Bulgaria to join the EU and Nato," he added. Mr Parvanov also pointed out that Mr Borisov had proposed 10 of the ambassadors in question.

The president has the exclusive power to appoint or dismiss ambassadors; the government can only make proposals to that effect. Under current legislation, Mr Borisov can recall the diplomats in question but cannot fire them. This would mean indefinitely downgrading diplomatic relations with half of the world and Europe.

Replacing the problematic officials would also require an amendment of the current law on diplomatic service, which makes it difficult for diplomats who started their career after Communism to become ambassadors. Under the law, this position requires at least 15 years of diplomatic service.

This means that most of the foreign ministry senior staff were recruited under Communism when a refusal to work for the spy services would normally entail severe reprisals.

If Mr Borisov even tries to change the diplomatic service bill, Mr Parvanov is sure to refuse to sign it into law and to ask the constitutional court to throw it out. That would mean six months of diplomatic stalemate, given the period that the court has to look into the case and make a judgement.

Meanwhile, the recalled ambassadors may challenge the discontinuation of their missions in court as illegal lustration and stand a good chance of winning.

In an apparent bid to make a deal with Mr Parvanov, Mr Borisov has proposed to fire all officials in his administration who appear to have state security links, should the president agree to part with all ambassadors with a Communist spy background.

So far, Mr Borisov's minister on expatriates, Bozhidar Dimitrov, and a handful of regional governors have proved to have state security dossiers but it is unclear how many others may be discovered in the ongoing screening.

Mr Parvanov has instead suggested that files relating to the controversial diplomats should be published for the public to judge whether they did anything wrong or just served their country.

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