The Parliamentary Committee on Energy will have subcommittees on green policy and climate and on control of EWRC

The Temporary Committee for Drafting Rules of Procedure of the 46th National Assembly met at its first sitting. The changes provide for a merger of the foreign policy and European committees, as well as the civil society committee, with the human rights and complaints committee. There will be a separate Commission on Tourism and a separate Commission for Bulgarians Abroad. The initial project envisaged subcommissions, but "Stand up BG! We are coming" and "Democratic Bulgaria" objected.

There will be a Committee on Economic Policy, High Technology and Digitalization and a Committee on e-Government and Information Technology. A subcommittee on the implementation and use of the RCCs shall be established within the Commission for Internal Security, Public Order and Control of the Services.

The Energy and Climate Commission will have a subcommittee for green policy and climate and a subcommittee for control over the activities of the EWRC. The Committee on Budget and Finance will have two subcommittees - for control of public funds and a subcommittee on European funds.

It is envisaged that the deputies who left their parliamentary group will keep their place in the standing committees, and the respective parliamentary group will supplement its quota in the committees. In such cases, the composition of the commissions will be expanded.

The MRF pointed out that it is unconstitutional for a group of deputies who are not members of parliament to be deprived of participation in committees. Therefore, the temporary committee discussed the fact that the committees are supplemented by non-members of a parliamentary group.

Each MP will be able to be elected in the leadership of only one standing committee, the changes also provide. The committee was asked whether a deputy speaker of parliament could also be chairman of a committee. Currently, the rules of the National Assembly do not provide for such a possibility.

The time for objections in the way of conducting is reduced from 2 to 1 minute. The proposal was made by the Speaker of the National Assembly Iva Miteva, arguing with the abuses of these procedures. There will be no declining quorum in the committees and a personal vote must be taken, she said.

We explicitly wrote that the bill will not be considered at the first vote before a public discussion and before the report is uploaded on the National Assembly website, Miteva told reporters and pointed out that all interested parties have the right to attend the discussions in the committees.

At the same time, the draft of the new Rules envisages the repeal of the text introduced by the 45th National Assembly that every bill submitted by MPs undergoes mandatory public consultations under the Law on Normative Acts. My personal opinion and that of my colleagues is that this is on the edge of the Constitution, Miteva commented. She pointed out that every MP has the right of legislative initiative, and the current text is unclear and practically stops the work of the committees. Thus, there will be public discussions of the bills of MPs, but they will not block their legislative initiative, members of the commission explained.

Iva Miteva commented that she had asked the committee how to organize the work of the National Assembly - whether to have meetings every week. She pointed out that in most countries an approach is taken to alternate plenary hall with committees.

Regarding the talks on future governance, Miteva said she did not take part in them, but was invited to the Justice meeting today.