Although already resolved, the Foreign Ministry’s contract with Shimon Sheves for lobbying the European Union on behalf of Bulgaria dug out a greyer side of Bulgarian political life than the Government seemed to have been prepared to account for.

In summary, Israeli businessman Sheves’ IG International offshore consultancy company won a Foreign Ministry public procurement officially signed on March 13, which gave him the right to lobby for the ratification of the Bulgarian pre-accession treaty with the EU in France, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, countries known for their Bulgarian 2007 EU-entry scepticism. The contract was worth a maximum of slightly less than 1.5 million leva and had an hourly rate stipulated at 560 euro. Five days after the contact was signed, media reports about Sheves’ past appeared.

It was alleged that in November 2004, Sheves had been charged on two counts  of breach of trust during his term as director-general of the prime minister’s office under Yitzhak Rabin. Transparency International listed him in its Global Corruption Report 2006. Allegations linking him to bank fraud in Indonesia and an affair in Kazakhstan also appeared.

Sheves was also subject to allegations in Germany. In 2002, the federal criminal service found out that he had received millions of German marks in the 90s as a lobbyist between the construction corporation ABB, the German Socialist Party and Socialist International. According to Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria (DSB) members and media reports, President Georgi Purvanov’s team had been in contact with IG International through the 2002 Socialist International conference in Sao Paolo.

The Foreign Ministry said that they had learned about Sheves’ past from the media. Still, Israeli court procedures against Sheves started in 1999 - the last year of Foreign Ministry spokesperson Dimitar Tsantchev’s term as a diplomat in Israel. It was a mystery how the Foreign Ministry did not know about Sheves’ past, said internet news site Portal Europe.

On March 27, Bulgarian-language newspaper Monitor said that the Foreign Ministry had hired Sheves for Purvanov’s presidential campaign - Sheves was well known for his election lobbying in Israel and Romania, and the contract’s end date was mysteriously set as October 31 - a date that has nothing to do with Bulgaria’s EU chances. A report about Bulgaria’s readiness to join the EU in January 2007 will appear on May 16, and the final decision by the 25 EU member states about Bulgaria’s accession date is expected to be made in June. October, however, is the month when presidential elections will be held.

Purvanov denied the allegations. He said that he did not use lobbyists and that he had learned about the Foreign Ministry’s intention to hire Sheves from the media. He then called on the ministry to annul the contract and to disclose information about Sheves and the deal. Data in the US registry of the ministry of justice quoted by Portal Europe, however, showed that during Purvanov’s meeting with secretary of state Colin Powell in 2002, Purvanov used the services of a lobbying company.

In the interaction between the media, the Foreign Ministry and, most notably, the DSB that followed, the name of Milen Velchev (finance minister in 2001-2005) was also mentioned. In 2004 he reportedly had hired RSLB Partners Inc, with Sheves as chair, to lobby for the settling of Iraq’s debt to Bulgaria. Four agreements were signed between RSLB Partners Inc and the Finance Ministry between 2003 and 2005. The DSB asked for an investigation into Velchev’s involvement.

On March 22, the Foreign Ministry said that the contract with Sheves would not enter into force unless he presented a certificate by March 31 showing that he had no criminal record. Instead of doing so, Sheves withdrew from the deal, but not before threatening to sue Bulgarian media and politicians from rightist parties for dirtying his name. The Foreign Ministry apologised to Sheves for the trouble, Sheves accepted the apology and the affair appeared over on March 31.

The Bulgarian media versus political institutions saga, however, is far from over, as was painfully obvious from the walls erected against media access to details of the Sheves contract. Only 50 per cent of Government documents are accessible, and in 38 per cent of the cases when access to public information is asked for, it is either denied or partially granted, according to NGO reports.

The lack of a public registry that lists lobbyists and deals for lobbying in Bulgaria seems to be what makes lobbying deals more or less always a matter of shady exchanges. However, the problem is not in the lack of a public registry, but in the lack of any provision for making lobbying itself transparent by means of recording what goes on in meetings between lobbyists and politicians, said Alexander Kashumov, a lawyer who works in the non-government Access to Information Programme.

Although Bulgarian politicians shy away from speaking about lobbyist deals, lobbying in Bulgaria is anything but new. Between 1997 and 2005, Bulgaria signed 48 contracts for lobbying with different companies, Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin said at a news conference at the end of March, quoting the US public register of lobbyists. He also promised to push for the creation of a parliament committee to recommence work on a law on lobbying.