The head of Bulgaria’s State Agency for National Security, Tsvetlin Yovchev, has resigned, the Government media office confirmed on February 16 2011.

Yovchev told Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov that Borissov’s assessments of the agency’s performance, repeated voiced lack of confidence in him and his failure to live up to Borissov’s expectations about the agency’s priorities had prompted him to resign.
 
Yovchev has been in office since August 2009. He was appointed soon after Borissov’s party GERB won Bulgaria’s July 2009 national parliamentary elections.

Bulgarian National Television (BNT), quoting unnamed sources, said that Yovchev had not been pressured to resign and the decision to quit had been his own.

Yovchev's resignation followed sharp criticism earlier in the day of the agency and its performance in relation to recent controversies about the use of electronic eavesdropping and surrounding the bomb attack on February 9 outside the central Sofia offices housing Galeria, a publication that has been at the centre of anti-Government allegations.

Borissov hit out at the agency's lack of involvement in the investigation of the Galeria bombing, saying that it was not clear whether this had been a terrorist act.

Roumen Petkov, a former interior minister and a senior member of the opposition Bulgarian Socialist Party, said that Yovchev’s resignation would have serious implications for a long time to come.
 
Suddenly the agency seemed to blame for everything and its chief accepted responsibility and resigned, Petkov said, describing Yovchev as "one of the best professionals in the field".

Yovchev submitted his resignation at the Cabinet office at noon on February 16, BNT said.
 
Volen Siderov, leader of ultra-nationalist party Ataka, which generally has stood by Borissov’s Government since it took office, said that Borissov should carefully consider the resignation and how to have it withdrawn.
 
Yovchev had been managing the agency well and it would not be good for him to resign now, according to Siderov, who also has served as chairperson of Parliament’s committee overseeing the security agency.
 
According to Siderov, quoted by news agency Focus, "this would be a happy event only for the circles around the Octopus," a reference to the influential organised crime network that Borissov’s Government has conducted high-profile operations against in recent months.
 
Martin Dimitrov, co-leader of the centre-right Blue Coalition, said that it seemed that Borissov was looking for someone to blame for recent controversies and the agency had proved to be the easiest scapegoat.