site.btaDraft Resolution Amending Parliament's Rules of Procedure Passes Committee Stage

Meeting on Wednesday, the parliamentary Constitutional and Legal Affairs Committee voted, 11-2 with four abstentions, to approve a draft resolution to amend and supplement the Rules of Organization and Procedure of the National Assembly. The draft, which was tabled by the legislature's chair Nataliya Kiselova on June 12, 2025, thus passed the committee stage without a debate and will now go before the full house for conclusive adoption.

The proposed revision provides that the full or abbreviated name of a parliamentary group may not duplicate the full or abbreviated name of another parliamentary group or of any political party or coalition of parties registered at the Central Election Commission (CEC) for the latest parliamentary elections, including by adding any words, letters, figures, numbers or other characters. 

According to the draft amendment, a parliamentary group whose full or abbreviated name does not conform to the requirements of the new provision, will have three days from the entry into force of the resolution to adopt a decision on a change of its name. If any such parliamentary group fails to do so within that time limit, its name will be recorded as the CEC-registered name of the political party or coalition of parties from whose candidate list the MPs of the group concerned have been elected.

Kiselova's motion responded to a request by MPs of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms - New Beginning (MRF - NB) Parliamentary Group, who argued that parliamentary groups' full and abbreviated names should adhere to the form of the CEC registration of the respective parties or coalitions.

In the incumbent 51st National Assembly, there are two parliamentary groups using the Bulgarian abbreviation "DPS" in their names: MRF-NB, led by Delyan Peevski, and Democracy, Rights and Freedoms (DRF), which was formed by MPs loyal to MRF honorary chair Ahmed Dogan.

For the October 27, 2024 parliamentary elections, CEC registered both factions of the once-solid party Movement for Rights and Freedoms as parts of two separate coalitions of parties: Movement for Rights and Freedoms - New Beginning for Peevski's wing (along with two other parties: The New Leaders and Bulgarian Voice), and Alliance for Rights and Freedoms (ARF) for Dogan's loyalists (consisting of two parties: United Patriots for Just Bulgaria and Agrarian National Union). The Bulgarian abbreviation "DPS" unequivocally stood for "Movement for Rights and Freedoms" until Dogan's faction adopted it in the sense of "Democracy, Rights and Freedoms".