Today, Deputy Prime Minister for Climate Change and Minister of Environment and Water Borislav Sandov met with the heads of the 15 regional inspectorates of environment and water (RIEW), the four basin directorates, and the three national parks.

“Zero tolerance for corruption - this is the main goal of the coalition government and we must do everything possible to reduce corruption to zero. One of our main tasks to this end is to make the work of the administration transparent. I am committed and this is my belief - information that is neither a trade secret nor classified under the law, should be visible and easy to access on the first page of the website of each regional inspectorate, basin directorate, or national park,” said Minister Sandov. He asked the directors of the regional structures at the Ministry of Environment and Water to set up a section on the front page of each department, which will follow a similar design and organizational logic for all directorates and will be accessible to all citizens and businesses.

Minister Sandov also declared his intention to shorten administrative procedures, which will alleviate both the employees at the individual regional inspections and the business. “Especially the EIA procedures constitute a heavy workload for the RIEW, so we will propose a new solution - if we have a comprehensive environmental assessment in a given area and it is clear what is allowed and what not, then some of the investment plans will automatically go through the procedures. We want to carry out administrative and digital reforms, which will make it easier for the business, will reduce bureaucracy, and this already amounts to a fight against corruption,” said Borislav Sandov. He highlighted that participants at the meeting should feel free to raise issues and suggest ideas to “improve certain processes.”