Less than two weeks after Interior Minister Roumen Petkov announced the six companies that had been short-listed for the second and final round of the procurement for the production of Bulgaria's new biometric passports, the entire procedure was cancelled.

The procurement was called off because "all six companies made administrative and legal errors in their application", Bulgarian daily Dnevnik quoted Deputy Interior Minister Goran Yonov as saying.

The companies, among them the producers of biometric passports for several EU member states, had failed to provide statements of interested parties, Yonov said.

Yonov did not say why the ministry had decided to break off the procurement instead of postponing the deadline or requesting the additional documentation. According to Yonov, however, the violations were "too serious to solve" and "could not have been spotted in the first round".

In an editorial, Dnevnik asked if the violations were to serious to be spotted in the first round and if the companies had been selected to continue to the second round, what were the criteria for selection at the end of the first round of the procurement? According to Dnevnik, it was dubious if any of the companies treated in such a transparent way would even consider taking part in the next procurement.

"They will simply be the next with first-hand experience of how business is done in Bulgaria," Dnevnik said. "Never mind that fact that the deadline for the introduction of biometric passports passed with Bulgaria's joining the EU. Brussels should get used to the fact that this is the way things are done here."