Emi Baruch's comment:
At the beginning of October, President Rumen Radev convened an extraordinary meeting of the National Security Advisory Council (NSAC) to discuss the "need to take measures" in relation to "risks and threats to national security in the context of conflicts in the Middle East".
After the meeting, the president made a summary of the discussed topics and announced specific recommendations. Wrapped in many words - all laden with significant national security concerns, with calls for a ceasefire in the Middle East, with concern for the human cost being paid by the innocent inhabitants of this region, as well as noting the necessary measures to ensure the security of the Bulgarian citizens - the words of the president fell into the plane of the familiar. Until quietly and slowly they came to a strange and disturbing idea - the need for a law to protect the fatherland. President Rumen Radev explained to those present that "the preparation of citizens for the defense of the fatherland is regulated by law". And "there is no such law".
What does Radev mean by this idea?
These words of Radev did not go unnoticed by national security experts, who commented, first, that the convening of this Advisory Council was completely unnecessary. As the former military minister Velizar Shalamanov emphasized: "The topics raised are the responsibility of the executive power". That is, they should be discussed in the Security Council at the Security Council. And secondly: the statement about the lack of legislation for the preparation of citizens is not true: the Law on the Reserve of the Armed Forces regulates exactly this, according to experts, including the former Minister of Defense Todor Tagarev.
What is the reason then for recommending the development of a law for the protection of the fatherland? According to the military expert Iliya Nalbantov, program director of the "George Marshall - Bulgaria" Association: "At the moment we have a person who, in addition to generating a political crisis with a raised fist, wants a special law and, with hidden motives, wants extraordinary powers to overcomes the crisis […] He (Rumen Radev - note ed.) personally needs a law that repeats the model of the Law for the Protection of the State, operating in the second quarter of the 20th century, because there is a crisis and his military reflex is totalitarian, wants to rule alone. He needs a repressive law to build a military-political force with extraordinary powers".
Here is the place to recall the spirit of law-making in the second quarter of the 20th century - following the example of the National Defense Act, which came into force in early 1941. Here is part of the rationale for the National Defense Bill, presented on October 7, 1940 by Petar Gabrovsky, Minister of the Interior: "Today, in the times in which we live […], the nation needs such protection, especially since refers to international, secret or foreign-backed organizations that could become conduits of anti-national influences". (It goes on to talk about Jews and cosmopolitanism, but that's another topic.)
Familiar, right?
If the executive and legislative branches do go after the president's ideas for a homeland defense law, it would mark the success of a concerted effort to divert public attention from the truly important issues of the day: the capture of the justice system, influence peddling , corruption, the violation of the fundamental rights of minority groups, the breakdown of the social structure and more and more things that have led to a hopeless apathy of the subjects.
If the executive and legislative powers really go after the president's ideas to develop a law for the protection of the fatherland, we are faced with the hypothesis that Bulgaria will consolidate its downward path to the company of countries such as Russia, China, Venezuela, North Korea, Iran, in that there are laws with a similar content.
Coincidence?
There are other "margin notes" of the transcript of the emergency meeting of the National Security Advisory Council, which raise questions that remain unanswered.
Why, since the beginning of the war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, the President Rumen Radev has not found it necessary to call a meeting of the CSNS to discuss the real threat to Bulgaria's national security from the ever-expanding influence of Russian proxies in the country? There is no doubt that this threat is much more dangerous for Bulgarian democracy and national security than the conflict in the Middle East.
The last session of the CSNC was held days before the Kremlin attacked Kyiv. And from February 15, 2022 until now - nothing on the subject. Why for two years and eight months have regular sessions of the CSNS not been held, after the law mandates that this should happen at least once every three months?
Why exactly now is the idea of a law for the protection of the fatherland emerging? There is no doubt that one of the most aggressive political formations, which will re-enter the future Bulgarian parliament, recognizes this rhetoric and will take advantage of its verbal constructions.
The extraordinary meeting of the National Security Advisory Council was held three weeks before the next parliamentary elections. And whether this is a coincidence - we can only guess.