Tuesday, March 8, 2016, in West Hall of the National Assembly it was held a public discussion between first and second reading of amendments in the Non-Profit Legal Entities Act (NPLEA). The forum was initiated by the Parliamentary Committee on the interaction with NGOs and citizen complaints jointly with the Public Council to the Committee. MPs, experts from the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Finance, the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and civic organizations all took part in the discussion.

The forum was opened by the Chairman of the Committee on the interaction with NGOs and citizen complaints Mrs. Boyka Marinska with the words: "The purpose of this discussion is to show the commitment of all interested parties to improve the environment for the development of civil society organizations in Bulgaria. We all know how important it is to ensure the constitutional right of citizens to participate in the processes of the country."

The Chairman of the Public Council to the Commission on the interaction with NGOs in the 43th National Assembly Luben Panov pointed that with the adoption of the law in the autumn of 2000 has been set solid foundation for the democratic development of our country. He reminded that though that period members of the Parliament from all parliamentary forces shown their support to the new law regardless of their political affiliation.

According to official data provided by the National Statistical Institute, all the NGOs in Bulgaria are 40 000 in total and the number of their members exceeds 2 million persons. People working in the NGO sector are 23 000, and involved as volunteers - over 95 000 people.



Deputy Minister of Justice Verginia Micheva determined the proposed changes as an important step towards improving the transparency and accountability of the organizations, as well as reducing the administrative burden for them. The proposed transfer of the registration of non-profit organizations from district courts to the Registry Agency is expected to bring beneficial effects including faster administrative procedures, lower state taxes, electronically filing documents and others.

During the public hearing Mrs. Marinska presented the proposals made by MPs Menda Stoyanova, Chairperson of the Committee on Budget and Finance, Milena Damianova, Grozdan Karadjov, Snezhana Dukova and Boyka Marinska. The submitted texts provide the establishment of a Council for Civil Society Development to the Council of Ministers with the functions to participate in the development and implementation of policies for the development of the civil sector, including the allocation of funds for financial support of socially significant projects of NGOs in public benefit. The funds should be annually provided and are supposed to be spent upon the budget of the Council of Ministers. Members of this Council will be selected on the basis of a transparent and competitive procedure. They can be only non-profit legal entities operating in public interest.

In support of the proposed changes in the NPLEA, including the proposal for establishment of a Fund to the state budget to support meaningful initiatives with public importance, statements were made by representatives of various civil society organizations, including Nadya Shabani from the BCNL, Iva Taralezhkova from Citizenship Participation Forum, Georgi Bogdanov from National Network for Children, Krasimira Velichkova from Bulgarian Donors' forum, Iliana Nikolova for "Workshop for civic initiatives" Foundation, Ashod Derandonyan from "Listen up" Foundation.

One of the important clarifications was made by Nadya Shabani. According to her it is essential to be provided a procedure for selection an external operator who should allocate the funds instead of the Council, but only in case that the Council is entrusted with such a function. She also drew attention to the fact that in the future it is important to provide better protect of the names of civil organizations.
The good news from public consultation came by the present MPs who expressed their readiness to include the given proposals in the Bill which is supposed to be submitted to the plenary for second reading soon.

New proposals for changes to the text of the Bill can be made until March 11, Friday. Mrs. Marinska encouraged interested parties to send their proposals to the members of the responsible committees such as the Committee on Legal Affairs, Committee on Budget and Finance and the Commission on the interaction with NGOs and citizens' complaints, so they could be taken into account. After that date it would become clear what kind of final versions of the texts will be discussed by the MPs in plenary on second reading.

The forum ended with a screening of one of the 15 video whose capture was initiated by the Bulgarian Center for Not-for-Profit Law on occasion of the 15th anniversary of the adoption of the NPLEA. Why the time for change has been come explained Lubomir Vasilev from the "Capital" Foundation.