Contributed by: Bulgarian Gender Research Foundation, Bulgaria National VAW Monitor
The Commission for Protection against Discrimination will conduct a monitoring of all European practices, connected with acknowledgement of same-sex couples who live together and possible changes in the Bulgarian Family Code, according to an interview for Darik with Kemal Eyup who is chairperson of the Commission for Protection against Discrimination. He added that the Commission has already committed to a working group of experts to study the European directives and practices which deal with this problem after a complaint from the gay organization "Gemini.” The Commission examine the obligations that Bulgaria has concerning European directives and European legislation. After that, if it is necessary, the Commission make recommendations in the Family Code to the relevant commission in the Parliament and the Ministerial Council. If the MPs agree with the recommendations, then they can include amendments in the Code. Eyup did not say whether there are concrete dead-lines for the preparation of the monitoring. In connection with the declaration from May 9th, the Society for a New Bulgaria political party condemned the attempts of "Gemini" to change the textbooks and called the Commission "repressive authority for settling personal accounts." Kemal Eyup said that changes are not planned in the textbooks concerning the definition of a family paradigm - man and woman; moreover, the matter is not on the agenda for now.
Compiled from: Kemal Eyup: Changes Not Planned for Textbooks Concerning the Definition of a Family: Man and Woman, Dnesplus.bg, 12 May 2008.