The number of deputy ministers and deputy regional governors would be cut down by 20 to 30 per cent, Milen Velchev, deputy chairperson of National Movement for Stability and Progress (NMSP), told Focus news agency on April 18 2008.

Furthermore, a new Cabinet position will be created - a deputy prime minister without portfolio who will be in charge of monitoring and control of European Union funds spending in Bulgaria.

Velchev attended the first day of the negotiations for the Cabinet re-shuffle with NMSP's two coalition partners, Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF).

Prime Minister and BSP leader Sergei Stanishev asked for the re-shuffles on April 11 2008, when the Cabinet survived its fifth no-confidence vote tabled by the opposition on the grounds of the Government's alleged ties with organised crime. NMSP abstained from voting, which was not taken well by the BSP and the MRF.

Currently, the portfolios in the Cabinet are distributed according to the coalition agreement signed between the three parties in August 2005, which gives BSP the right to appoint eight ministers, NMSP five and MRF three.

The parties are represented equally in terms of deputy ministers and regional governors. Given that each minster has at least three deputies, the number of deputy ministers currently is 48.The same applies to regional governors, who are appointed by the Cabinet as its representatives in the local administration. Bulgaria has 28 regional governors and at least 84 deputy regional governors.

The idea to establish the position of deputy prime minister without portfolio came as no surprise. In the last four months Bulgaria has been widely criticised for its lack of transparency in spending EU funds and this is the Government's response to European Commission's criticosm, which resulted in freezing of funding under all pre-accession programmes.

The negotiations between the three parties in the ruling coalition are expected to continue for a week and changes are expected to become a fact by Orthodox Christian Easter, April 28.