Excerpt:
Bulgaria's parliament is seeking to change the Law on Religious Confessions, to limit external financing and crack down on religious "radicalism".
Two separate pieces of legislation – one backed by party leaders of the ruling GERB party, the opposition Socialist Party and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, MRF – and another introduced by GERB's minor coalition partner, VMRO, were both deposited in the assembly on Monday.
The first proposal aims primarily to introduce state subsidies for the major religious denominations of up to 15 million levs [7.5 million euros] a year.
This sum would be divided among the faiths whose followers number at least 1 per cent of the population, according to the latest census data.