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Bulgaria facing EU penalties, possible fines

The decision has been taken on expert level and should be enforced officially on Wednesday after the weekly sitting of the commission, confirmed Brussels sources.

Sofia is seen remiss on a number of issues like the designation of protected sites under the Natura 2000 program, tackling waste disposal in the capital Sofia, delayed adoption of the single European emergency call number, 112, and ID papers with embedded biometric data as well as mistransposed EU law.

Bulgaria will receive a warming letter on each of the red-flag areas, informing the government that it could earn sizeable fines unless it acts promptly within two months of receipt. In case that deadline is missed, the European Commission will begin over the ensuing two months proceedings against Sofia. This means that the government in Sofia has four months tops to dig deep and fix the problems.

The harshest procedures could be initiated for Bulgaria's failure to correctly transpose community legislation. EU law, for instance, requires that the temporary waste disposal sites in the capital Sofia undergo an environment impact assessment. Not so according to national law.

The absence of the necessary infrastructure for the implementation of the single European emergency call number contravenes the EU universal service directive. The farthest Sofia has got so far is issue an ordinance dated August 2007 for the creation of regional centers that will handle 112 calls.

The interior ministry only recently opened a public procedure to select a provider of biometric ID cards. The procedure is not expected to wrap before the end of 2007, making sure that Sofia will most likely be unable to avoid penalty measures.

The only area where Sofia will probably be able to avert penalty action is the Natura 2000 backlog. The four-month leeway will be quite sufficient because work on the completion of the protected site list is expected to be concluded by mid-December.(Dnevnik)