Bulgaria to Reintroduce Ban on Disclosure of Communist-Era State Security Files of Senior Intelligence Officers

Bulgaria's Dossier Act may be amended so as to prevent the disclosure of records of the collaboration of high-ranking intelligence officers and senior officials of the Defense Information Service of the Defense Ministry with the communist-era secret service, State Security (DS).

The legal amendments were submitted to Parliament by the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and nationalist party Ataka, according to reports of private TV station Nova TV.

The legal changes envisage a ban on disclosing the DS records of persons who have held senior positions at the civil and military intelligence services since 1991.

The special protective regime for former intelligence officers was revoked in end-2012 at the proposal of the right-wing Blue Coalition.

Then-ruling party GERB (Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria) canceled a provision preserving the DS records from disclosure by the Dossier Commission.

The socialists have demanded the reinstatement of the regime out of concern for the safety of the intelligence officers and Bulgaria's national security.

The opposition, however, has refuted these claims, saying that the current legal regime also allows blocking the disclosure of the DS files of an intelligence officer by the Dossier Commission in cases where a threat has been proven to exist.

"20 years after the transition, the senior staff of intelligence services must not contain people who were trained by the KGB,"Krasimir Tsipov from GERB declared, adding that the step had been taken to conceal the past of certain party officials who had engaged in "things other than intelligence" throughout these years.

In March 2013, the Dossier Commission uncovered the first batch of names of senior intelligence officers, among which was the name of the current head of the National Intelligence Service, Dragomir Dimitrov.

Bulgaria's military and civil intelligence services have not yet submitted their full archives to the Dossier Commission.

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