site.btaParliament Chair Nazaryan to Join Parliamentary Forum for Democracy 2025 in Brussels

National Assembly Chair Raya Nazaryan is set to take part in the Parliamentary Forum for Democracy 2025, organized by the European Parliament in Brussels, the National Assembly press service said on Wednesday. The event aims to strengthen partnerships between legislative institutions to reinforce democratic processes.

The forum will bring together representatives from national parliaments of EU member states, members of the European Parliament, delegates from parliamentary networks, and leading experts.

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola and Danish Parliament Speaker Soren Gade will deliver addresses at the opening of the Parliamentary Forum for Democracy 2025. Strategies and best practices for building trust in democracy and its institutions will be presented, with a focus on local movements, civic participation, and engaging young people in democratic processes.

Nazaryan will speak in the forum’s first session, which focuses on strengthening parliamentary democracy through civic participation.

On November 17, Minister of Justice Georgi Georgiev attended the regular meeting of the EU General Affairs Council in Brussels, which discussed the principles of the rule of law. Georgiev said Bulgaria has managed over the past ten months to catch up on reforms in the Justice sector that had been delayed for the past three years, as outlined in the Recovery and Resilience Plan. He noted that the latest major reform is the new Lobbying Act, developed after consultations with the European Commission and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which is set to be put up for public discussion.

On November 17, Minister of Justice Georgi Georgiev attended the regular meeting of the EU General Affairs Council in Brussels, which discussed the principles of the rule of law. Georgiev said Bulgaria has managed over the past ten months to catch up on reforms in the Justice sector that had been delayed for the past three years, as outlined in the Recovery and Resilience Plan.

At a Business Integrity and Sustainability Forum in Sofia on May 29, Justice Minister Georgi Georgiev said the Government aimed to present a Lobbying Bill by the end of June, drafted in consultation with the civil sector, the OECD and the European Commission, to shed light on how stakeholders influence lawmaking. In June, Access to Information Programme Executive Director Alexander Kashumov warned that the bill might turn into a “foreign agents” law.

In October, Georgiev discussed with the European Commission a package of Criminal Procedure Code amendments tied to the Recovery and Resilience Plan and a finalized Governance Transparency and Integrity Act to regulate lobbying, and later linked these and other justice reforms to Bulgaria’s efforts to be removed from the FATF money-laundering grey list and to progress towards OECD membership.