On November 11, 2022, the amended Rules of Procedure for the Organization and Activities of the National Assembly (PODNS) were promulgated. For the first time in the last 6 years, since the start of the regulatory reform in Bulgaria, the Methodology for conducting a preliminary impact assessment of draft laws submitted by members of parliament has been supplemented with a new independent element or, more precisely, an aspect of the assessment entitled "Equal treatment by the state and balanced demographic development".
With the changes, MPs submitting draft laws are required, in a separate line or in a separate section of the preliminary impact assessment, to describe how their proposals contribute to compliance with the principle of equality under Bulgarian legislation and to the equal treatment by the state of Bulgarians and Bulgarian citizens living outside the country, including their inclusion in the state and socio-political life in Bulgaria. Apart from that, they are also required to indicate the expected impacts of their proposals on balanced demographic development, including on the rates of population decline, the dynamics of migration flows and the limitation of the number of emigrating Bulgarians.
The objective justification for these changes in the National Statistical Institute, given in the preliminary impact assessment prepared for them, is that according to data from the National Statistical Institute and according to the latest population census of 2021, the current number of Bulgarians living outside the country is between 1.5 and 2.4 million. This means a permanent continuation of the trend that the share of Bulgarians living outside Bulgaria is equal to nearly 30% of the population living on the territory of the country. The current data on the demographic situation in Bulgaria from 2021 show that the process of accelerated population decline and aging continues, the total birth rate is decreasing and the total mortality rate is increasing.
Overall, the changes in the methodology for conducting a preliminary impact assessment, which is part of the National Assembly's National Strategy for National Development, deserve admiration. On the one hand, they expand the subjective scope of the assessment, figuratively including in it 2 million new Bulgarians who have so far been excluded from our national legislation, as if they did not exist, and this is nearly a third of all Bulgarians. On the other hand, they make the legislative process that develops within the National Assembly more inclusive and reflects the all-time leading and especially key dimension of "fundamental human rights". Thirdly, the methodology for the first time imperatively forces all deputies, when they decide to legislate, to ask themselves the question of existential importance, which is almost forgotten at present: will we still have Bulgarians as a nation with our current demographic development.
