The Government’s Legislative Program

Earlier this week the Council of Ministers announced its legislative plans for the first six months of this year. Naturally the question, which everybody is interested in, is whether anything will change for the better, i.e. whether or not the government is willing to implement any of the long awaited reforms. Since the specific texts of the legislation is not available yet and the entire information consist of a list[1] of legislative intentions, the conclusions about that which probably will happen could be made only in one direction: changes in what areas foresee the Council of Ministers, or which is almost the same, where it considers that there are no problems, and respectively there is no need to initiate any changes.

The following table represents briefly most of the areas where changes will be considered in the existing policies.

Table 1 – Systematic representation of expected legislative initiative of the government according to areas and expected motives for the first three months of the year.

Area	Assumed reason
January
1. Ecology	Further harmonization and adjustment to the EC norms of the national legislation
2. Competitive Law	Further harmonization and adjustment to the EC norms of the national legislation
3. Air Transportation**	Further harmonization and adjustment to the EC norms of the national legislation
4. Foods and forage **	Further harmonization and adjustment to the EC norms of the national legislation
5. Radio and Television	???
February
6. Waste	Further harmonization and adjustment to the EC norms of the national legislation
7. Energy efficiency	Further harmonization and adjustment to the EC norms of the national legislation
8. Statistics, meetings and manifestations, damage caused by the state	Probably not mandated by EC norms, the direction of the specific changes is not clear yet
March
9. Extradition and European arrest order	Further harmonization and adjustment to the EC norms of the national legislation
10. Measurements	Further harmonization and adjustment to the EC norms of the national legislation
11. Obligations towards the International Fund for compensations, caused by pollution with oil	International obligations
12. Student Loans	National issue, to pass a Law on Student Loans
13. Assistance to agriculture and agricultural regions	European norms probably amended with specific national character
14. Explosives and pyrotechnical materials	Further harmonization and adjustment to the EC norms of the national legislation
15. Telecommunications	Harmonization is achieved, the changes are probably related either with precision of the EU norms or introduction of additional regulations on the market (the idea of removing such regulations have never been shared by the government, respectively it is not very likely that the changes will be in that direction)
16. Mineral Wealth	???

* We have excluded legislation for ratification of international and intergovernmental agreements, memoranda, etc.

** According to the last report[2] about the progress of Bulgaria on the accompanying measures after joining the EU, in the area of civil aviation we are behind with respect to application of the rules of the Union and the United Aviation Authority (UAA). According to the same report, in the area of food safety a review is foreseen of the accepted transitional measures, it is highly probable that they must be adjusted as well.

Specifically for January, since it is already ending, we have to note that not a single one of the above mentioned proposed bills have been put to the Parliament at this time[3]. Specifically we are talking about the following measures:

A bill about the responsibilities for pollution and cleaning of environmental damage;
A bill about amendments of the Law for protection of competition;
A bill about amendments to the Law on Civic Aviation;
A bill about amendments to the Law on Foodstuff;
A bill for amendments to the Law on Forages;
A bill for amendments to the Law on Radio and Television.

During the same period there are bills entered in the Parliament by the Council of Ministers (CM), which however are different from those mentioned above in the legislative program. Respectively, on the first place we have to mention that CM does not execute activities which it has promised to execute and actually alone defined.

On the second place, in case that our expectation that the basis for the proposed bills is correct, than we have to draw the conclusion that CM to some degree acts as a local administration to EC. If we take into account the fact that the largest part of bills, proposed by the CM are passed by the parliament, while the proposals of the opposition are mainly rejected, than the parliament is acting as a registration-administrative structure of the CM, which itself is acting as a EC administration.

What we should not miss is that the government apparently has no intention to reform pensions, healthcare and education systems, since the related to these sectors bills are not among those proposed for amending. In that respect we could hope that the initiative would come from the opposition or MP's from the ruling coalition, which however without the support of the CM is almost 100 percent bound to fail.

One other very troublesome question – according to the last amendments of the Bill on Legislative Acts (BLA – into effect since 1^st of January 2008), the motives which accompany the proposed bills must contain:

The reasons which require to pass the bill;
The goals set;
Financial and other means required to apply the new regulation;
Expected results from the application, including financial, if there are any:
Analysis of compliance with of the EU laws.

Also according to the BLA a proposal for a bill, which is not accompanied by motives, which correspond to the five criteria simultaneously, will not be allowed for discussion by the competent body, i.e. the Parliament? A review of all proposed bills, up until now, none complies with all of the above criteria. Is it necessary to reject reviewing them as a result of none compliance with the requirements of the law is a question that needs an answer.

[1] The entire list could be found at the address – http://www.government.bg/cgi-bin/e-cms/vis/vis.pl?s=001&p=0037&n=000056&g=

[2] http://www.government.bg/fce/001/0037/files/zadokumenti-bulgaria_report_bg_1%5b1%5d.pdf

[3] You could check this at the address: http://www.parliament.bg/?page=app&lng=bg&aid=4