The Minister of Environment and Water Rositsa Karamfilova met with mayors and municipal representatives from municipalities, which failed to carry out the obligations related to the implementation of reclamation activities for old landfills.

In a total of 8 municipalities - Byala, Pernik, Velingrad, Dupnitsa, Pirdop, Boboshevo, Kocherinovo, and Kardzhali, urgent actions are needed to implement the projects for technical reclamation of municipal waste landfills.

A year ago, the European Commission warned that our country could be brought before the Court of the EU to pay significant financial fees for failure to reclaim 43 landfills for non-hazardous waste. At the moment, there are 8 such landfills, whereby Bulgaria must put maximum efforts in their reclamation, so as to decrease the amount of fees to be paid.

Minister Karamfilova insisted in front of local government representatives that a nationally responsible attitude be assumed and work be carried out at a fast pace. The Ministry of Environment and Water has requested from the municipalities a schedule of the upcoming activities for the next two months and plans to conduct weekly inspections and reporting on implementation and achieved progress. The results of the inspections will be made public. These immediate actions on the projects are required in relation to the decision by the Court of the European Union of July 16, 2015, whereby Bulgaria was found in failure to fulfill its commitments regarding the closure and reclamation of old municipal landfills.

The MOEW team will monitor the accelerated implementation of the projects for the reclamation of the municipal landfills. The main source of funding is Operational Program Environment 2014-2020.