Chapter 3: Bulgaria

(continued)

MAPPING AND EVALUATION OF OPPORTUNITIES

International Decisionmaking

The main difficulty is that international treaties are not well-known in Bulgaria. However the NGO community has looked into some cases in which the state fails to apply the CITES convention (this is the last stage post decision monitoring).

The recommendation here would be to ensure the flow of information from the government to the public at least for those international acts that are in a course of preparation and that concern public participation and the main obligations of the state toward future environmental policy. If the NGO community can know about the international treaties and conventions that are being prepared by taking part as a representative of the Bulgarian state, it will be a great step for the future involvement of the NGO community in applying the future act.

It would be useful if, as in other decisionmaking processes, the government discusses international decisions with the public the problems and possible solutions. In international decisionmaking the scoping of the problem and the different alternatives are just as important as in domestic decisionmaking. This is more important when an act that provides public participation is being prepared.

Preparation and Approval of National Laws and Regulations

The second characteristic is that the Bulgarian government urgently wants to adopt reasonable rules for regulation of internal environmental problems, a practice that was not common for the previous government. A typical example of this is the current preparation of the Law on the Protected Territories that has already been brought into the Council of Ministers. The time spent on initiation of the problem, defining the scope of the law, defining the alternatives and so on was far too short.

In this regard the government should ensure information is distributed to the public about the prepared acts at any of the stages of the preparation. Thus even when the terms for making national legislation are short, the public can have an idea about what is being prepared and can present its comments and remarks. Another recommendation is to begin the decisionmaking process by assessing the problems and the decision. Current practice shows that often the analysis in national decisionmaking is done at the final stage when the verbal form should be done to the content.

The parliament has begun a useful practice: The parliamentary commission for environment invited a group of NGOs to its session to discuss an amendment of the EPL. Soon after the open session, the amendment reached a vote. Some of the texts were slightly changed after the discussion, but others were not changed and there was no further discussion over this issue.

This practice should continue. Parliament should invite NGOs to the environmental commission sessions more often. It would be opportune if enough information about the subject of the discussion were given in advance so NGOs could have sufficient time to prepare their position. In the ideal case, the commission would have the time later to discuss the changes with representatives of the public, too. The public would receive a copy of the prepared act without needing special permission. This should be made as a proposal not only to the commission for the environment but also to the other commissions, linked with the environment - the energy commission, the commission for agriculture, etc.

Preparation and Approval of National Strategies and Policies

First of all, in Bulgaria there is no tradition of a multiparty society in which the law (or national strategy) has the role of common rule for behavior (or for development, in the case of the national strategy). The national strategy in Bulgaria is not perceived as regulating activity in a given sector, as the law does.

Second, planning in the past was associated with the central government's role in the so called "socialist-type" economy. Hence, the public still associates official planning with the former rules of economic development. This explains why there is no confrontation between the public and the government in the environmental field. The exception to this is in the field of energy planning, where there is disagreement about whether Bulgaria should construct another nuclear power plant.

Because the problem is more cultural than legal, perhaps we should prepare and execute an educational campaign about the role of the strategies and policies in the life of society. The public needs to know the content of strategies and policies and how these acts regulate development.

Through such an educational campaign, NGOs could also help ensure the government does all the necessary steps for preparing economic policies - scoping the problems, scoping the alternative decisions, selecting of the best alternatives and executing that choice.

Preparation and Approval of Local Rules and Regulations

From institutional point of view, local authorities are still rather dependent on the central authorities. Some localities depend on the central budget for more than 80 percent of their funds. In the past years the central budget was adopted in the summer months of the current year. This year is the first for which the budget was adopted at the end of the previous year.

The weakness of the central institutions (i.e. court, prosecution, interior ministry, etc.) also influences the work of the local authorities because the criminality cannot be pushed away from the real life.

The lack of recent tradition in local self-government has also left many local authorities unaware of the possibilities they are given by the Law on the Local Government, and hence they do not use even the small advantages for implementing the local self-government.

From a cultural point of view the local government is not perceived as a real alternative in a society marked by 50 years of central planning. All of the above-mentioned institutional characteristics also have their cultural side.

Several efforts have been undertaken to create local rules and regulations in the field of environment with various degrees of success. The first difficulty is that often there is not a clear understanding of the boundaries between national and local legislation. Thus in Vidin and also in Petrich the local council enacted a new "environmental tax" imposed on any car leaving the territory of Bulgaria at the border with Romania. This tax was illegal because the law does not give the local council the right to impose such a tax.

The second difficulty is the lack of will within the local administration to be proactive in enforcing or allowing the provisions of a new environmental regulation. This is the case particularly in small municipalities, where some environmental projects include the adoption of an environmental regulation, but where the environmental problem is not a permanent one or is not perceived by the vast majority of the people as real environmental problem.

Another difficulty is connected with the fact that again the usual steps in the decisionmaking process are not followed correctly. If the local population succeeds in defining the problems, there is not enough effort put in defining the alternatives and in their evaluation, which makes the decision ineffective.

Within the small communities there is again the lack of information - a problem at all levels of government - which creates an even greater climate of mistrust on the local level than on the national level.

The recommendations for the future work at local level are the following:

• building capacities for analyzing problems and defining the decisions and alternatives. This could start with a few, simple decisions that are prepared, adopted and finally enforced (i.e. the process of decisionmaking is followed up to the end).

• education on the meaning and importance of the rules of self-government. This effort could also strive for more openness of the work of the local authorities.

Preparation of Regional/Local Policies and Strategies

Preparation and Approval of Territorial Plans/Local Land-Use Plans

The advantage of the existing procedure is that NGOs can use it and can try to be a party in the planning. This method is currently in use by an NGO named For the Earth that is trying to join a procedure to appeal the changes of the local LUP.

The disadvantage of the existing procedure is that it does not provide opportunities for public participation at an early stage of the decisionmaking process. That means the public cannot give its input at the stage when the general framework of the plan is prepared.

The main recommendation would be to provide public participation opportunities at the beginning of the LUP procedure as it is provided in the EIA procedure. This would include the right to appeal the procedure if all the requirements for public input are not observed. Another recommendation would be to create a set of criteria for drafting the LUP. This is an issue that currently is not regulated in details in practice.

EIA

Application of the EIA procedure over the past several years already has shown the progress made in public participation as well as the failures of the procedure.

The progress made is linked with the efforts of some NGOs to assure better planning in some places. The project for Pirin-Betalovoto is a typical example: NGOs brought about serious changes in a plan for tourist facilities and investments in a region close to a protected area. The presence of legal texts giving rights to NGOs and the public has also helped increase public participation, and so has the ability to appeal administrative decisions.

The main failure in the EIA procedure is the lack of sanctions for not providing information necessary for the public to assess the EIA report. This is a legal problem.

The other problem is that the public in general is still unaware of the possibilities the EIA procedure provides. Because of this, the public participates in only a few EIA procedures. In each of these cases, there are usually several NGOs participating, while other cases take place with no NGO involvement whatsoever.

Another consequence of an unaware public is that people don't know the limits of the procedure and therefore do not realize they cannot necessarily prevent an investor from carrying out a project as long as he responds to all the conditions of EIA.

Recently, the Parliament adopted a law that reduced the number of activities that require an EIA study. It is true that many of the formal EIA studies created unnecessary work for local and national officials; however, NGOs had reason to criticize the new rules because some of the criteria for defining the object of the EIA are not clear enough.

The MoEW has cooperated with the NGOs, and the ministry often informs a number of NGOs directly about some public discussions above the official means of informing the public (i.e. through the mass media). It is a good approach and it can be recommended to be followed elsewhere in the country and also by other ministries.

Siting/Permitting

The system of siting and permitting in Bulgaria has not changed for many years and practically all the authorities give permits under the old system.

A program for approximation of the Bulgarian legislation with the legislation of the EU is currently under way. The NGOs should ask for information about the projects and insist at least on having full information on the issued permits and the conditions under which the permits are issued. This is also a recommendation for the authorities to provide this kind of information to NGOs.

For some permits linked to local natural resources, it would be advisable to allow public participation as is done in the EIA process.

Management of Environmental Funds

The major failure in the management of the environmental funds is that the outside public, and even some of the members of the boards, cannot receive information about all the decisions regarding the fund's spending. There is also weak, if any at all, post-decision analysis and feedback on how the money has been spent.

The progress made is linked with some new ideas within the MoEW to create funding for concrete issues and to arrange competition for several projects prepared on a given theme. More progress should be made in giving information about the funds and the contracts for which the money is spent. The act of refusing information about these issues should be proclaimed a sufficient cause for firing the president of the board of the fund. There should be rules for announcing the themes and the conditions for the competition at least one month before the competition, and the documentation on the competition should be publicly available.

The main principle in the work of the environmental funds should be transparency. This principle should be defended with legal tools.

Other Tools

Another important element is environmental education for state officials. This could easily be promoted through a governmental decision.