Bulgaria's Court of Audit Confirms Anti-Corruption Commission Archive Is Safe and Accessible

Concerns that sensitive files from Bulgaria's dissolved anti-corruption watchdog had simply vanished have been put to rest, at least officially. The Court of Audit announced on 3 July 2026 that the archive of the former Commission for Counteracting Corruption (known by its Bulgarian initials KPK) is fully intact and held at the institution's premises.

Western-context note: Bulgaria's KPK was dissolved in January 2026 and its successor functions were redistributed among existing institutions, leaving questions about what happened to years of accumulated case files.

What the Court of Audit Actually Said

According to Dnevnik, the Court of Audit stated that an internal check confirmed the archive matches the documents described in a handover protocol dated 27 January 2026, covering materials related to both the KPK and its predecessor body, KPKONPI. In other words, the paperwork lines up with what was supposed to be there.

There is one important nuance. Club Z reports that while the general archive is present, any pre-trial proceedings that had not yet been concluded were forwarded to the Prosecutor's Office rather than kept at the Court of Audit. That is a legally logical move, but it does mean the files are now spread across more than one institution.

Why the Alarm Was Raised in the First Place

The reassurance from the Court of Audit came after public warnings from two prominent figures. Club Z notes that lawyer Aleksandar Kashanov from the Access to Information Programme raised concerns about missing dossiers, as did Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev. When a lawyer specialising in transparency law and a sitting minister both flag the same problem, the story tends to gain traction fast.

Varna24 covered the Court of Audit's direct denial that any documents had disappeared, framing the institution's statement as a rebuttal of those earlier alarm signals.

Whether the reassurance fully settles the matter is another question. Archives being physically present and archives being practically accessible and properly indexed are not always the same thing. That distinction is likely to remain a point of scrutiny in the weeks ahead, particularly given that the KPK handled investigations touching on some of the country's most politically sensitive corruption cases.

Why This Matters If You Are Following Bulgaria From Abroad

For Bulgarians living outside the country, the fate of anti-corruption records is not an abstract bureaucratic detail. Many diaspora families have experienced firsthand how impunity and institutional opacity shape everyday life back home, from property disputes to business permits. The KPK's files represent years of documented allegations and investigations. If those records were compromised, the consequences for ongoing or future accountability efforts could be significant.

For now, the official position is that everything is where it should be. The Court of Audit's statement offers some reassurance, but the fact that the announcement was needed at all tells a story of its own about the trust deficit surrounding institutional transitions in Bulgaria's governance landscape.