PM Borisov Uses Muscles, Laws to Put Bulgaria FBI in Order

Bulgaria's PM Borisov on his wait out of the State National Security Agency DANS. Photo by Sofia Photo Agency

The Bulgarian government has crafted a new draft law on the State National Security Agency DANS, and has distributed it to its employees, who are supposed to give their feedback by the end of the week.

This has been announced Monday by Bulgaria’s Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov, who, together with Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, met with the leadership of DANS, including its Director, Tsvetlin Yovchev.

According to Borisov, the agents of the Bulgarian FBI are highly motivated at the moment, and are looking forward to a fresh start. He said he had received many valuable suggestions from the DANS staff on how to reduce red tape and to improve the work of the agency.

“I am going to appreciate the most that agent who brings me an investigation of an acting Minister or Deputy Minister, or a Mayor, from GERB,” Borisov said referring to his own party.

The PM also said that even though last week the leader of the conservative party RZS, Yane Yanev, who is also the head of the Parliamentary Anti-Corruption Committee, said he already had information about corrupt officials from Borisov’s GERB party, Yanev had not provided any evidence yet.

“I hope that from now on the name of DANS is going to be heard only as a result of a successful operation,” the PM said regarding the notorious agency which recently saw several scandals.

Borisov vowed to bear responsibility for anything that happened in the agency together with its Director, Tsvetlin Yovchev, and to introduce layoffs at any of its units which proved ineffective.

“I have forbidden fighting. Whoever wants to fight must come see me at the Council of Ministers building,” Borisov declared when asked about the information announced recently by the former DANS Deputy Director Ivan Drashkov, who revealed that because of a conflict between warring groups inside the National Security Agency, one of its senior officials had been beaten by another agent. “Everyone knows what has happened here the last year and a half,” said Borisov.

The State National Security Agency DANS was set up on January 1, 2008, as a new institution uniting several intelligence services. Former Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev has been accused of setting it up in order to counterbalance the influence of former Interior Minister Rumen Petkov.

Several highly problematic cases connected to DANS surfaced in the recent months, including the Galeria case, in which DANS agents spied on leading Bulgarian journalists, and the leaking of a top secret intelligence report produced by the agency in October 2008, which Borisov says his predecessor Stanishev hid and leaked to incriminated officials.

PM Borisov has said recently that if DANS did not start working property, he might move to shut it down in a couple of months. However, his government has set upon restructuring and reforming the agency instead.

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