The Investment Incentive Act makes the building up of protected areas in Bulgaria easier

The text does not put any restraints on the establishment of real rights and does not even mention the Law on Protected Areas and the State Property Act, according to which protected area land is considered public state property. Therefore it cannot be subject to disposal transactions. The Law on Forests, which puts restraints on these activities in the zones of the European ecological network Natura 2000, has not been cited either.

Only 3 months after the depraved practice of the so-called „barters“ of state-owned forests and land was stopped. This act makes them legal again for single-person companies with public and municipal participation. Thus, after Article 22a, Paragraph 9-11, they would be able to sell, exchange or establish limited real rights on property owned by them. Besides, selling and exchanging of property will also be allowed on non-market prices which were only limited to its property tax value. The investors will be allowed to iniciate such bargains, the only requirement being a certificate of investor category. No other guarantees of expedience or social usefullness of the investment project are required, and there are no restrictions concerning investment in protected areas or protected zones. According to Article 22a, Paragraph 10, Section „a“, investors with a category B certificate, i.e. investors intending to carry out a project to the value of 16 Million Leva or more, can profit from the privileges offered by this law. The only criteria for a project to be chosen is to belong to one of the priority fields of economy. However, as we already know, in adition to the fields of education and high technologies, considered fields of priority after this act, last year the government also proclaimed medicine and tourism (including golf-course development) as priority fields, and due to the present crisis, all fields of economy are now declared of priority.

There are no guarantees that no savoury public property will be sold on the price of its tax value to close associates of the government or the administration (investors). This could be done by exchange, selling or by including them in already existing or newly established public or municipal single-person companies. The goal is to profit from this act.

Environmetalists are warning that, as past experience shows, in the case of such discrepancies between law and regulations, private interests gain priority over the public ones.

If the act of amendment is passed in this form, it allows construction in and disposition of land and forests which have already been included in the protected areas and zones of Natura 2000. This will lead to serious contradictions to the Protected Areas Act and the Law of Biological Diversity.

The environmentalists insist that the act should be returned to the Bulgarian parliament in order to exclude this possibility. The way it is formulated, the act brakes the European contracts and directives in the field of competition policy. These infringements will lead to new punitive prosedures against Bulgaria. Therefore, coalition „Let nature remain in Bulgaria“ insists on the president’s veto, which can prevent this from happening.

Translation from Bulgarian: Elena Popova