Legal aspects of the referendum to preserve the lev

|Full text of the analysis|

On July 7, 2023, the majority in the National Assembly rejected holding a referendum on preserving the Bulgarian lev as a currency and, accordingly, postponing accession to the eurozone until at least 2043. The Parliament rejected the referendum proposal formulated in this way, even though all legal requirements were met and at least 470 thousand signatures out of a total of over 600 thousand collected were recognized as valid.

This decision of the parliamentary majority, as well as its reasoning, provoked quite a few legal debates. The dilemma was brought to the fore regarding the legality of the referendum itself on the one hand, and the legality of the decision of the National Assembly to reject it, despite the compliance with the legal requirements. Subsequently, two of the political formations represented in parliament referred the matter to the Constitutional Court due to doubts about the constitutionality of the decision of the parliamentary majority to refuse to hold a referendum on the relevant issue.

The outcome of this case could open a new chapter in the history of the modern Bulgarian constitution. The question of the role of direct democracy, the direct participation of citizens in power, is posed unequivocally. It is in this context that EKIP publishes the legal analysis of Toncho Kraevski - a lawyer and doctoral student at the Faculty of Law of Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski".

This text aims to prove two things:

1. The decision of the National Assembly to refuse to hold a referendum is contrary to the law and the Constitution;

2. The issue of subscription is not settled in a ratified international treaty;

The main conclusions of the analysis are as follows:

• The referendum, as a tool, is not a given of democracy, but has been imposed and continues to be imposed gradually through a struggle between citizens and parliament.
• Parliament misinterprets the law in its own favor, appropriating the power to verify whether the law is being complied with.
• The current text of the law is the result of the parliamentary debate between the representatives of the BSP and the MRF in the Fortieth National Assembly, who have differences regarding the spirit and substance of the Constitution.
• The principle of the rule of law requires the Constitutional Court to interpret the text not only from the perspective of the legislative motives, but also of the interest of citizens.
• The issue of adopting the euro is not regulated in the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU in a way that excludes the possibility for Bulgaria to choose when to adopt it.

You can read the full analysis at this link.

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