The caretaker government has annulled the selection of three candidates for the post of European Prosecutor and decided to restart the procedure from scratch, following an internal review that revealed serious irregularities, political influence and concerns over the legitimacy of the process.
The Council of Ministers has cancelled its earlier decision to approve the nominations of Dimitar Belichev, Michaela Raydovska and Plamen Petkov. The caretaker Minister of Justice will notify the relevant European body responsible for the subsequent selection process, the caretaker government's press office said on April 8.
Under the new decision, the Council of Ministers has tasked the Minister of Justice with organising a new selection procedure for Bulgaria’s candidate for the post of European Prosecutor, based on clearly defined rules.
The selection will be carried out by a five-member commission, comprising a tenured academic specialising in criminal law or criminal procedure; two judges from the Criminal College of the Supreme Court of Cassation, nominated by the General Assembly of the court; one prosecutor from the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor’s Office, appointed by a deputy to the Chief Prosecutor; and one lawyer with at least 12 years’ experience in criminal law, criminal procedure and EU law, nominated by the Supreme Bar Council.
A representative of the Ministry of Justice, fluent in English, will also take part in the commission in a non-voting capacity.
The decision to withdraw the previous nominations follows a comprehensive analysis by the Ministry of Justice, which identified significant and systemic shortcomings in the national selection procedure conducted between October 2025 and January 2026. These concerns relate to both the organisation and the legality of the process.
The caretaker government said a new procedure is necessary to ensure strict compliance with the principles of political neutrality, independence, transparency, objectivity, fairness and equal treatment, and to guarantee that the selection is based on clear, comparable and publicly available criteria.
Significant shortcomings have been identified in the formation of the national seven-member commission responsible for selecting candidates for the post of European Prosecutor. The commission included two representatives of the Ministry of Justice, two representatives of the Prosecutors’ College of the Supreme Judicial Council, two representatives of its Judges’ College, and one representative of the Faculty of Law at Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski.
A key and fundamental concern was the participation of four members of the Supreme Judicial Council whose mandates expired on 3 October 2022, yet who were still able to form a majority within the national commission. The continued exercise of powers beyond the term set out in the Constitution of Bulgaria and the Judicial System Act raises serious questions about the legitimacy of their involvement in such important personnel decisions concerning a key institution within the EU’s justice system.
The chairing of the commission by a representative of the political cabinet of the Minister of Justice — a deputy minister — along with the participation of another member appointed by the ministry, raises justified concerns about potential influence from the executive branch over a key personnel decision for the country and the European rule of law, and calls into question the independence of the judiciary.
In practice, the only member with a clearly independent and politically neutral status was the representative of the academic community. This means that the commission as a whole was not in a position to guarantee an objective and depoliticised selection.
The selection process was conducted in the absence of prior, publicly announced rules with clear and objective criteria and a methodology for assessing candidates’ knowledge, professional and moral qualities. This creates a risk of inconsistency, lack of transparency and subjectivity in Bulgaria’s кадрова policy regarding this highly important post within the EU’s justice system. It undermines equal treatment of candidates and deprives them of an effective means of appeal, as the absence of clear criteria makes it impossible to verify the correctness of the evaluation.
There is a real risk that the European selection committee could reject the list of candidates approved at national level due to the identified procedural shortcomings. Such an outcome would cause significant reputational damage to Bulgaria and lead to further delays in the selection of a Bulgarian candidate.
The annulment of the decision of 21 January 2026 and the restart of the procedure is described as an act of preventative state responsibility, aimed at ensuring that candidates are selected through a transparent, competitive and depoliticised process.
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