Law Program Secretary Stephan Kyutchukov was among the Bulgarian delegation attending the international conference on "Regulation of the Civil Society" held on 12-15 May,1998 in Sinaia, Romania. The conference was organized by the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law in Washington, the MOTT Foundation and the Open Society Fund in Bucharest. Participants attended from thirteen Eastern European countries and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Additionally, representatives of the European Foundations Center, the National Foundations Center (USA), Interphil and many other international and foreign governmental and non-governmental organizations participated in the conference.

Representatives from each of the thirteen Eastern European and CIS countries reported on the state of the third sector legislation in their home nations. Participants from the USA and Western Europe presented reports on Western legislation and the trends of its development.

Conference participants broke into four working groups which at the end of conference presented reports on the following topics:

• the establishment, registration and termination of non-governmental organizations;
• state regulation of the activities of non-governmental organizations;
• self-regulation of non-governmental organizations;
• the tax regime and fund raising for non-governmental organizations.

The purpose of these reports was to cover basic principles for inclusion in a future normative framework that would contribute to the development of non-governmental organizations in the former socialist countries.

A collection of the national reports and the reports prepared by the working groups will be published and distributed among the non-governmental organizations and the governments which are responsible for adopting modern legislation regulating the activities of non-governmental organizations. These materials will be made part of the collection of the Law Program's Commercial Law Library.

The Bulgarian delegation at the Conference consisted of representatives of the Center for the Study of Democracy, Open Society Fund, St. Cyril and Methodius Foundation, the Union of the Bulgarian Foundations, the Council of Ministers and Ministry of Justice.