Bulgaria’s Parliament adopted the bill on protecting the Bulgarian language and the Cyrillic alphabet

Bulgaria’s Parliament adopted, with 153 votes in favor, the bill on the Bulgarian language, which provides for the establishment of the Advisory Council for the Bulgarian Language under the Council of Ministers. The body will prepare reports on the study and use of the language and issue opinions on school curricula and textbooks.

The council will include representatives of the Bulgarian Language Institute of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, academics, Bulgarian language and literature teachers, and a representative of the Council for Intangible Cultural Heritage. The ex officio chair will be the director of the Bulgarian Language Institute.

The bill provides that official statements, communications, signs, and inscriptions in public spaces be written in Bulgarian using the Cyrillic alphabet. Transliteration using Latin letters will be permitted below the Cyrillic text, while foreign languages may be used under special laws or for commercial and tourism purposes.

The initiative of the Revival party was rejected in six consecutive legislatures, but has now received the support of the Progressive Bulgaria party. Revival leader Kostadin Kostadinov argued that English has become ubiquitous in public spaces since Bulgaria joined the European Union.

The chair of the Education Committee warned that the text provides neither penalties nor a clear monitoring mechanism. The deadline for submitting amendments ahead of the next reading was extended to 21 days.