In a meeting behind closed doors, which took less than 40 minutes, the parliamentary committee on internal security and public order approved the first reading of proposed amendments to the Electronic Communications Act, granting expanded powers to police and the judiciary.

"We defended the amendments, as we did in public discussions organised by the Interior Ministry," Deputy Interior Minister Veselin Vuchkov was quoted by Bulgarian daily Dnevnik as saying after the meeting on December 10 2009.

Atanas Atanasov, chairperson of the committee, told journalists that issues regarding how the Interior Ministry would receive information from mobile operators and service providers had been discussed, but he did not go into details.

Members of parties that formed the previous government, which had tried to introduce similar legislative changes, had not voted on the current proposals.

According to Atanasov, committee members from the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) had abstained, while members of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) did not attend the meeting.

Committee member for the BSP, Atanas Merdjanov, was quoted by Dnevnik as saying that he abstained from voting because the proposal contained elements that had been mooted by the Stanishev government.

"This is my personal opinion. How our parliamentary group would vote is to be discussed further," Dnevnik quoted Merdjanov as saying.

Committee member for the Blue Coalition Yordan Bakalov, said the short meeting did not leave room for in-depth discussions.
"There are two keywords in this issue; control and trust. In this case both are missing, so I will vote against the bill," Bakalov was quoted by Dnevnik as saying.

"I am astonished that representatives of GERB [Prime Minister Boiko Borissov's ruling Citizens for the European Development of Bulgaria party - RB] today voted in favour of a proposal that gives the Interior Ministry much more power with less oversight than the proposal from former interior minister Mihail Mikov four months ago," Bakalov said.

Bakalov said he remained critical of the proposal because the proposed interface, through which the Interior Ministry would have permanent and immediate access to the databases of mobile operators and internet service providers, was not subject to judicial review in the proposed amendments.

According to Bakalov, similar interface proposals had been dropped in other European countries after they had been declared unconstitutional.

Figures quoted by Dnevnik, showed that in France, which has a population of almost 60 million, 5000 requests for the use of special investigative means and another 40 000 requests for phone printouts were approved annually. For Bulgaria, with a population of 7.6 million, these figures were 10 000 and more than 350 000 a year, according to data former interior minister Mihail Mikov presented to the parliamentary committee on internal security earlier in 2009.

Committee chairperson Atanasov announced a meeting would take place in the coming week with non-governmental organisations, to discuss any issues these organisations would raise.