The political opposition in Bulgaria wants to establish a permanent parliamentary committee that will supervise and control the European funds. This topic, which was casually raised in Parliament on December 4, replaced the actual topic that had been planned for discussion at the time, the creation of a committee for conflict of interests.

During the parliamentary session, Plamen Mollov, parliamentary floor leader of the National Movement for Stability and Progress, called for the establishment of the watchdog dealing with conflict of interests, which is a requirement of the bill for investigation and prevention of the conflict of interests, a legislation which was passed last month and goes into power from January 1 2009.

In order for the aforementioned commission to be created, augmentations must be accepted in the parliamentary regulations. Mollov suggested that seats on the committee should be allocated to parties, who would then fill them in with their MPs.

Its discussion, however, was gradually pushed away from the daily order by the proposal from the centre-right Democrats for a Strong Bulgaria opposition party, which suggested installing a permanent committee to supervise and control the allocation of the European funds. DSB MP Konstantin Dimitrov proposed that the committee be made up of two members from each parliamentary group.

DSB argued that that the existing committee under Mladen Chervenyakov from the Bulgarian Socialist Party was not performing its duties competently and wants the new body to publish monthly reports thoroughly explaining the management of the money.

The proposal was rebuked, however, with the Parliament majority deciding to concentrate on the alternative of creating a sub-committee for conflict of interests, correlated with the commission of national administration. It will be comprised of three members of the opposition and the majority.