Movement for Rights and Freedoms

After nearly two hours of talks on Tuesday, center-right party Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria (GERB), liberal party Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) and right-wing formation the Reformist Bloc failed to reach agreement on draft constitutional amendments.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has vowed that Health Minister Petar Moskov will withdraw a set of legal amendments paving the way for the privatization of hospitals.

Speaking Wednesday in Parliament, Borisov assured that hospitals would not be removed from the no-privatization list.

Bulgarian President (2002-2012) Georgi Parvanov has called on his successor Rosen Plevneliev to trigger a national security council meeting over the developments related to Bulgaria-Roma tensions.

The second-largest opposition party in Bulgaria, the DPS, has backtracked on its calls for a rewording of questions a forthcoming referendum on voting rules.

On Friday Lyutvi Mestan, who heads the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS), told NOVA TV arguments favoring the introduction of a majority system were "irrational".

Law lecturer Prof Georgi Bliznashki is to join an ad hoc committee in Parliament set up to work on proposed constitutional changes.

Blizhashki, whose academic experience is overwhelmingly in constitutional law, has been a staunch critic of some of the amendments, and his comments have often been met with resentment by pro-reform lobbies.

Bulgaria's opposition party Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS) proposed a rewording to one of the questions likely to feature in the referendum on changes to the electoral rules, which is expected to be held simultaneously with the forthcoming local elections in the autumn.

97 MPs placed signatures in support of a set of proposed changes to Bulgaria's Constitution on Wednesday, according to Parliament Speaker Tsetska Tsacheva.

Five of the eight parties in Bulgaria's Parliament have signed a declaration to renounce the use of trolls on the Internet to promote their political ideas.

The Patriotic Front (PF), one of the parties supporting the coalition government, called on Friday for support of the declaration on the recognition of a Bulgarian genocide in the Ottoman Empire.

At the end of April, the PF tabled to parliament a declaration for condemning the crimes committed against the Bulgarian people within the Ottoman Empire, BGNES news agency reports.

Competition Protection Act amendments concerning retail chains have passed first reading in Parliament.

The bill submitted by the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) was approved without a single statement by MPs for or against it.