The newest revelation by the committee on the opening of the archives of the former communist State Security police and People's Army is that three of the former governors of Bulgarian National Bank (BNB), the country's central bank, were linked with the former communist secret services State Security.

The list of former communist agents who have worked for BNB since the fall of communism was published on July 22 2009 and included the names of Ivan Dragnevski (BNB governor from December 1989 till January 1991), Todor Vulchev (governor 1991-1996) and Luybomir Popov (governor 1996-1997).

Dragnevski worked as a secret agent and informer for State Security in 1972-1978 under the codenames Gorast and Goras.

His successor at BNB, Vulchev, was registered as a State Security agent in 1973 and remained as such in State Security records until 1990 under the name Sotir.

Filipov worked for State Security under the name Rover between 1972-1974.

In other words, for the first eight years after the fall of communism, Bulgaria's central bank was run by people who had worked in some form with the former communist regime secret services.

A total of 309 post-1989 BNB employees have been checked, of whom 26 were identified as State Security associates.

The report on BNB's former employees came out hours after Parliament decided that MPs who were affiliated with the country’s communist-era security services would be barred from leadership posts in the House and its committees.

The proposed ban on collaborators holding office in Parliament says that they may not be elected to the leadership of Parliament as a whole, may not head committees of Parliament and may not take part in international parliamentary delegations.

The decision was added to Parliament’s rules of procedure over the protests of the Bulgarian Socialist Party-dominated Coalition for Bulgaria – the BSP is the lineal descendant of the Bulgarian Communist Party – and the objections of Ahmed Dogan’s Movement for Rights and Freedoms.

Dogan, like President Georgi Purvanov and a number of other prominent Bulgarian public figures, has been shown by the Dossier Commission to have been involved with the country’s communist-era security services.
 
MRF MP Chetin Kazak said that the July 22 resolution would fail the test of Bulgaria’s constitution, as had a similar attempted bar in the Administration Act.