Bulgaria

In the course of this year Frontex, the EU border guard agency, will test two military UAVs (drones) for maritime border surveillance in the Mediterranean Sea: the Heron from Israeli Aerospace Industries (IAI) and the Falco from Italian arms giant Leonardo (formerly Finmeccanica).

A new report from the Transnational Institute and StopWapenhandel exposes the companies profiting from the militarisation of Europe's borders.

There are often rumours of conscription in times of political tension, or when right-wing spokespeople raise fears of the 'indiscipline of youth'. Such rumours often circulate without impact, but sometimes they are the start of a wider campaign and eventual reintroduction of compulsory military service.

The German Marshall Fund of the United States annually does a survey on important "transatlantic trends", which can make an interesting read. One of the questions asked is: "Please tell me to what extent do you agree with the following: Under some conditions, was is necessary to obtain justice." (Q29.2). The answers are quite revealing (see graphic below).

In this presentation I will give an overview of the right to conscientious objection, its
legal practices and frameworks in the 27 European Union member states. Before I do so, I want to step back a bit and have a brief look at the existing international standards about the right to
conscientious objection, as these standards allow us to put the practices in the EU member states into a perspective.

Issues

The end of conscription in Bulgaria also meant the end of conscientious objection.

On 25 November 2007, 2413 conscript soldiers completed their nine-month service and stepped into history as the last conscript soldiers in Bulgaria.

In 1998, the Bulgarian army had a complement of about 115 000 people, which was highly inefficient given the economic difficulties of the time.

At a seminar in Plovdiv in Bulgaria, organised by Youth Society for Peace and Development on the Balkans (YSPDB) on behalf of EBCO, YSPDB presented a survey on the situation regarding conscientious objection in Bulgaria. The survey had been done in 2004, and the total sample was 1265 interviewees. Here we present some of the results:

1.

JUDGMENT
(Friendly settlement)

STRASBOURG
3 May 2001

In the case of Stefanov v. Bulgaria,

The European Court of Human Rights (Fourth Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:

Mr G. Ress, President,
Mr A. Pastor Ridruejo,
Mr L. Caflisch,
Mr J. Makarczyk,
Mr V. Butkevych,
Mr J. Hedigan,
Mrs S. Botoucharova, judges,

and Mr V. Berger, Section Registrar,