Bulgaria Moves to Pass Law on Foreign Agents

In an initiative proposed by members of parliamentary committees on demographic policy and youth and sports, Bulgaria’s parliament is urged to swiftly pass a “Foreign Agents” law restricting NGO activities in the country.

Both committees are chaired by the ultranationalist Vazrazhdane (“Revival” or “Възраждане”) party, which proposed the initiative while addressing an anonymous survey on bullying conducted by the NGO Single Step, a leading advocate for the LGBT+ community in Bulgaria.

The meeting was attended by members of the NGO, as well as parental committees that echoed Vazrazhdane’s anti-LGBT+ position, a priest from the Bulgarian Central Parental Committee (BRCK), and tabloid journalist Evgeniy Minchev.

This initiative was brought forward a week after parliament passed a broadly-worded ban on “propagating, promoting, and inciting” LGBT+ “ideas and views” in schools, similar to, and inspired by, a ban on distributing “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relationships” in force in Russia since 2013.. The proposed “Foreign Agents” law requires organizations, artists, journalists, or bloggers receiving foreign funding to register as “foreign agents” and prohibits them from working in state universities, commenting on political events, or participating in government-funded projects.

The “Revival” party proposed a similar bill in 2022, but it was rejected by the previous parliament. The unexpected support offered to the latest bill by pro-European deputies allowed the party chairman Kostadin Kostadinov to threaten the NGO with a prosecutorial investigation over what he described as the organization of “LGBT+ propaganda” contrary to the proposed law. 

Stanimir Minkov from the “Bulgarian Association of Youth and Sports” likewise called for restricting LGBT+-focused organizations through the “Foreign Agents” law. 

Renowned Bulgarian animator, film director, and screenwriter Theodore Ushev responded to the news on his Twitter (X) feed: “I am happy to declare that I am a foreign agent, and as such, I will kick empty pro-Russian cans until they are removed from parliament and public life in the country.”

Previously, UN Human Rights Office Spokesperson Liz Throssell condemned anti-LGBT legislative changes in Bulgaria. ILGA-Europe, the European branch of a global advocacy group supporting LGBT+ people and causes, have also condemned a fast-tracked law banning the portrayal of LGBT+ identities in Bulgarian educational institutions. 

As reported earlier, the Georgian PEN Center, a federated member of the worldwide writers’ group PEN International, and a number of Georgian publishers condemned their government’s adoption of a law identical to Russia’s “On Transparency of Foreign Influence,” aimed at controlling NGOs and media that receive at least 20% of their funding from abroad.

Copy editing: Ben Angel, Joy Tataryn