One year after the commission in charge of declassification of communist-era secret service archives started work, three problems appeared as the main challenges Bulgaria faces in dealing with its communist past. Participants at an April 7 conference held in Sofia on the occasion of the commission’s one-year anniversary agreed that the issues of national security, lustration and communication among the institutions called upon by the law to disclose the archives of communist-era services should be addressed as early as possible.

The subject of national security in light of the commission’s work has often been addressed by current and former employees of Bulgaria’s secret services. When the law on communist archives was adopted in 2006, many feared that opening all the archives of Bulgaria’s secret services would harm the country’s reputation and image abroad and more precisely in the region. High-profile officials, such as Interior Minister Roumen Petkov and Kircho Kirov, head of National Intelligence Service (NIS), painted dark scenes of Bulgarian intelligence being exposed to the world leaving the country defenceless against enemy activity.

“A year later we can all see that nothing like this has happened,” Mincho Spassov, head of Parliament’s committee on internal order and public security, told the conference. “The fears that national security was going to suffer simply did not come true.” His opinion was shared by Nikolai Svinarov, former defence minister and Spassov’s predecessor. “We can all see that the commission is doing a great job and I can’t see how national security can be threatened by disclosing the communist past of certain individuals”.

Both Spassov and Svinarov picked their words carefully because they spoke in the presence of Kirov himself. Despite his high status, Kirov was the sixth to speak. In his 10-minute expose Kirov gave a high evaluation of the commission’s work but asked for changes in legislation exactly because of national security issues. The changes he suggested would prevent the commission from disclosing information about current and former heads of departments and sections within NIS. According to him, these posts did not fall under the definition of “public posts” that the commission is obliged to check. Kirov also asked for changes that would not lead to the commission disclosing information about foreign nationals who had worked for Bulgarian intelligence during the Cold War. “This would discredit Bulgaria in the eyes of other countries,” he said. “It is naive to think that we can’t use the experience of what has been achieved years ago simply because a certain state utopia has failed.”

His words did not provoke much of a reaction from the Bulgarians present at the event, but received a lot of comments from the foreign guests.

Marianne Birthler, a member of the federal commission for state security records of the former German Democratic Republic, strongly opposed to Kirov. “Mr Kirov, you should not be afraid that revealing all the information from Bulgaria’s communist services archives would damage Bulgaria’s national security,” she said. “I don’t understand why this is such an important issue. I can’t see why 20-year-old files are so important. In Germany they are not. It is the sealed archives that are dangerous, not the archives themselves. In Germany, Markus Wolf, head of Stasi, GDR’s state security, had tried to describe Stasi foreign intelligence as the clean hand of Stasi, but we found out that it had its share in committing crimes under communism.”

Krzysztof Persak from Poland’s Institute of National Remembrance (INR) shared Birthler’s opinion. “It is a myth that communist foreign intelligence was something different and had nothing to do with the crimes committed by domestic special services,” he said.

Birthler had a lot to say about lustration as well. “In Germany it is impossible for someone with communist secret services past to held a public position in today’s secret services”. Lustration was widely discussed in Bulgarian Parliament in 2006. Members of Parlieament eventually decided that no one would be prevented from holding public office because of his or her communist past. As a result, the fact that President Georgi Purvanov used to work as researcher for the secret services did not lead to any legal consequences for him. Another example is Petko Sertov, head of the State Agency for National Security.

Persak shared the Polish experience with The Sofia Echo. “Every candidate for public post in Poland signs a declaration whether he was a communist agent. The declaration is checked by the NRI. After that, the court has the final word. It is not exactly the fastest way to do it but it works. We have had about 100 people who have been caught in a lie about their past,” he said. “We have had about 300 people accused of crimes committed under communism, of which about 100 with issued sentences.” There has not been a single sentence issued in Bulgaria on such accusations.

Another subject of interest discussed at the event was the communication between the commission and the institutions currently holding the archives of former communist services. By law, the Interior Ministry, NIS and the Defence Ministry must send their archives to the commission. So far, the commission has managed to receive parts of these archives. “First of all, the commission needs to get a building so that it can do its job,” Bulgaria's Ombudsman Ginyo Ganev said. A year after its creation, the commission shares premises with political parties, which is not a recipe for success, he said. “It is not normal for the commission to draw conclusions based on information selectively provided by the very same institution the commission has to check”. At the moment, each of the three institutions can refuse information by claiming that the file contained “classified information”.

Kirov said that NIS was ready to give the commission the files on the case of Sergei Antonov, who was prosecuted by Italian authorities after to the assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II. He said nothing about giving the commission full access to NIS files.

In its first year the nine-member commission has checked a total of 47 010 Bulgarians who were candidates or holders of public posts including presidents, prime ministers, cabinet ministers, members of parliament, mayors and constitutional court judges. Of these, a total of 1669 people were announced to have been former collaborators, agents and employees of the communist secret services. The list features the names of former prime ministers, cabinet minsters and incumbent President Georgi Purvanov. Most people said they were surprised to see their names on the commission’s list, claiming they never knew communist services had them on file. Some said they had worked in the best interest of the Bulgarian state. Such was the explanation of Purvanov who worked as a history researcher.