Stoyan Gyuzelev from Bulgaria's ruling centrist-right GERB. Photo by BGNES
Dimitar Avramov and Stoyan Gyuzelev from Bulgaria's ruling centrist-right GERB became the first Bulgarian lawmakers to receive a sentence for conflict of interests in proposed law amendments.
The controversial amendments in question proposed in 2010 together with Desislava Taneva, also from GERB, to the Agricultural Land Ownership Act. According to the amendments, which were not accepted, owners of land would be obliged to offer their property for sale first to their tenant farmers, and the latter would have the right to determine the price.
The draft was criticized severely by the opposition as serving the interests of lobbying groups.
As it turned out, both Avramov and Gyuzelev owned shares of companies which would have benefited from the amendments at the time they tried to pass them. They have to pay the lowest fine in such cases - BGN 5 000.
The three GERB MPs withdrew their legislative motion because they failed to reach an agreement with the legal committee of the Parliament, which unanimously declared that the proposed legislation is unconstitutional.