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1 BACKGROUND

For the first dozen years after its adoption in 1991, the Constitution remained unchanged. All political parties have come to accept it as a foundation of the modern democratic state and were busy getting the country out of the economic stagnation that followed the collapse of communism. As a matter of fact, the reforms took in earnest only in 1997, after a severe banking crisis, hyperinflation and the introduction of a currency board. By then Bulgaria was already lagging behind the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, both in terms of economic growth and in their path toward accession to the EU. Yet, on most accounts, it would qualify as well-functioning constitutional democracy, regularly holding free and fair elections, where the incumbent governments were routinely ousted from power peacefully, and with the Constitutional Court reasonably often striking the new laws adopted by the National …