Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev said the government will propose constitutional amendments to restore the president's authority to freely choose a caretaker government.
Radev said the current system has exposed serious weaknesses and could even lead to a deadlock in the process of appointing a caretaker cabinet. “This is not normal. We have seen what comical, I would say, situations the last decision of the Assembly to change the Constitution led to, and we will propose that the powers of the president be returned, so that he can freely choose a caretaker government, and not as it is at the moment,” he said at a briefing.
According to Radev, the existing constitutional framework places excessive restrictions on the president when a caretaker government needs to be formed. “This leads to ugly results and we saw what happened in the process of choosing these caretaker governments, when the president's hands are tied. The procedure almost came to a standstill. Remember, there were such cases,” he said.
Under the current rules, the president can select a caretaker prime minister only from a limited group of senior officials. The list includes the speaker of the National Assembly, the governor or a deputy governor of the Bulgarian National Bank, the chair or a deputy chair of the Court of Accounts, and the ombudsman or deputy ombudsman. The chairman of the Supreme Court of Cassation was initially included in the proposed list but was later removed.
