When appointing Dimitar Glavchev as a candidate for acting prime minister, President Rumen Radev gave him 7 days to propose a government composition. There is no obstacle, and the National Assembly (NA) can change the structure of the government if Mr. Glavchev deems it necessary. For example, whether there should be a special minister for the elections, and whether certain ministries can be headed by one minister. These are issues that can be resolved, since there will already be a functioning National Assembly and it is not being dissolved. This was stated by the professor of constitutional law Assoc. Nataliya Kiselova to "Telegraph".
On Saturday – April 7, the deadline for Mr. Glavchev to present a composition of the government expires. "The President stated that he would immediately consult with the parliamentary groups. Here we can only imagine what exactly these consultations will be, because so far it has not been done. The President will present the composition of the draft cabinet together with Mr. Glavchev and if there are any more specific priorities besides organizing the elections. The state has several tasks to be solved – the second and third tranches of payments under the Recovery and Resilience Plan, full Schengen membership and preparation for our entry into the Eurozone. These are the three important priorities beyond the conduct of the vote. Thus, on April 8, there should be three decrees. The first – for scheduling elections for members of the European Parliament from the Republic of Bulgaria. The second - to appoint a caretaker government with Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev and a composition proposed by him. And the third decree - to schedule early elections. The Constitution calls them new parliamentary elections. All of this must be done by April 8th for the deadlines to start running from April 9th. If these conditions are met, the European and parliamentary elections will be able to be 2 in 1 on June 9," she explained.
"If the candidate for prime minister considers that there should be a minister in charge of the elections, it is possible that there will be. After the amendments, the constitutional text explicitly states that the main task of the caretaker government is to organize fair elections. For this reason, some parties doubted whether they would be honest enough. It is possible that these doubts will be disproved precisely through the post of such a minister. There have been caretaker governments in which there was a special minister. There have also been those with an advisor from the Prime Minister's political office," Assoc. Kiselova pointed out.
This Saturday, Glavchev must return the names of ministers to President Radev. Is there a possibility that the president will object to some of the names for ministers and ask for a change before the cabinet decree is signed?
"In principle, there is, because the act belongs to the president. However, Radev will be very cautious and only with such shocking or striking applications would he allow himself to object or disapprove. He currently has two goals. One is not to be accused by the parliamentary groups that it was his fault that the 2 in 1 elections were not held. Secondly, he is more interested in showing that the procedure for the formation of a caretaker government, foreseen after the changes in the constitution, is with disadvantages. When there is full responsibility from the president, it is clear who is responsible for the composition of the cabinet. When the government is appointed on the proposal of the candidate for prime minister, the responsibility is shared between the two – him and the head of state. The president will not want to share this responsibility at the moment, but will rather transfer it to the candidate for prime minister. We cannot guess what will happen if there are shocking figures in the ministerial list. We should allow the president to veto some of the candidates, given that the decree is his. Some lawyers struggle to see similarities in the procedures under other texts of the constitution, where there is a shared responsibility between the government and the president. In this case, Mr. Glavchev is not the prime minister for this procedure to be valid, as in the case of the appointment of ambassadors or senior military officers, because he is still a candidate. Although he has taken on the task of proposing a government, it may not materialize. I.e. we may move on to another candidate. This, of course, takes us away from 2-in-1 elections," she explained.
"The National Assembly in this case has no role regarding the names and people who will be proposed as ministers. The National Assembly can create, form and close ministries. In this sense, the intervention of the parliament is possible. However, Mr. Glavchev can return to the president on Saturday with an empty folder and say: I failed to cope with the task of finding 19 candidates for ministers. Because there is another problem that will appear in the coming days. When ministers are appointed by decree, they must have freed themselves from their incompatibilities," added the constitutionalist.
When asked where Glavchev could find 19 non-politically bound, neutral and non-corrupt ministers, Prof. Kiselova stated:
"In my opinion, he will be able to find them, but not because there are those who want to be ministers. Usually there are more than 19. And because, after all, back in his political career, Glavchev was the speaker of the parliament. As such, he worked with many more people than MPs. GERB, as a party that has been in power for too long, has enough low- and middle-level individuals who have been developing since 2009. They have reached a decent level of expertise. They are not prominent political figures, but they are at middle and high levels in the administrations of ministries. In my opinion, he will bet on such shots. Perhaps we will also witness a transformation of some of the current ministers into official ones. It is not about these 11 people who refused to be part of the "Gabriel" cabinet. We can look for transformation among the remaining 8. Here is a government with not so bright and familiar faces, but experts at the middle or high administrative level to move the state's affairs to the vote, she said.
Regarding the candidate for Prime Minister, we are already in a legislative procedure where the National Assembly will give him the opportunity not to fulfill his duties and go on unpaid leave. Regarding the other members of the future government, the incompatibilities persist. This means that, for example, the deputy governor of the BNB cannot be taken as a minister, added Prof. Kiselova.