The Minister of Environment and Water Asen Lichev approved new internal rules for processing notifications for import and export of waste to/from the Republic of Bulgaria from/to EU Member States and third countries.

The rules are designed to overcome the delay in issuing consents or raising objections to notifications for transborder transportation of waste, allowed under an administratively burdensome procedure introduced in July 2020 and leading to the impossibility of meeting the deadlines set in Regulation (EC) №1013/2006 and the Waste Management Act.

The new rules determine the organization and mode of processing the received notifications for transborder transportation of waste in order to optimize the deadlines for issuing decisions and reduce the administrative burden. With their approval, the current practice was terminated of holding committee meetings, which further delayed the review of documents and the issuance of decisions.

The procedure will be carried out via e-mail by the Waste Management and Soil Protection Directorate, the Legal Directorate, and the National Coordination Center Directorate. It will be completed with a report with recommendations to the relevant Deputy Minister for approval or objection in accord with the European regulation.