On November 3 the Czech Republic became the last country to ratify the Lisbon Treaty. This belated ratification stirred certain irritation among European leaders because, as ban Premier Boyko Borissov said, President Waclaw Kalus “has overdone tantalizing the EU”. Bulgaria ratified the Lisbon Treaty in March 2008, considering the document as a working and reasonable compromise, allowing Europe to become more stable and efficient.

From the long discussion on its institutional problems, the EU should nowadays pass onto conducting the reforms envisaged in the Treaty. A president of the European Council should be elected as well as a supreme representative for foreign policy of the union with enhanced potentials and a new European Commission. Internal rules should be reformed in such a way as to meet the arrival of 18 new European commissioners, one of whom would be Bulgarian. Furthermore new legislative rules and new procedures would be introduced in adopting EU budget, placing the European Parliament on an equal footing with the Council of the Union. This reform is meant to make the EU more efficient and quicker in making decisions with the equal participation of smaller members. Instead of the full majority required at present, as of 2014 decisions would be made with a qualified majority, which means 55% of member-states, representing at least 65% of the population of the EU. The implementation of the Lisbon Treaty would further enhance the role of national parliaments, because it allows them to take part in European legislation or at least in its preliminary discussion. Member-countries would be linked through a clause for solidarity in case of aggression and that is especially important for smaller nations. Thos who wish can further engage with a clause for joint defense. If they succeed in collecting 1 million subscriptions under a petition, EU citizens are entitled to demand from the European Commission to file a legislative draft-project. That would be a further step for overcoming what has been defined as a “deficit” of democracy in the EU.

But the new functioning of the union presupposes new responsibilities of national authorities. That puts forth the question whether they would be able to fully engage with them. Would Bulgaria’s Parliament be able to cope with these responsibilities and how under the Lisbon Treaty would they be distributed between national authorities and the EU. Current realities considered, these are highly difficult questions to answer.

English version: Iva Letnikova