The Minister of the Environment and Water introduced rules within the Ministry for awarding scientific consultations under the Mechanism for the Award and Implementation of Scientific Consultations by the Bulgarian Academy of Science (BAS), established by a decree of the Council of Ministers from January 2020. The mechanism is to provide scientific expertise for each of the bodies of the executive on issues of significant importance in the formation of sectoral and state policies, as well as in the transposition of European directives. Independent scientific expertise is also needed to align with other European recommendations or documents.

The new rules create precise and clear procedures for the award of activities with a similar subject, the purpose of which is to prevent evasion of the provisions within the Public Procurement Law.

The current changes were initiated following an inspection by the State Financial Inspection Agency into contracts concluded by the last regular government with the Bulgarian Academy of Science without public procurement. The agreements concluded with BAS were subject to verification by the Ministry’s internal audit, which recommended the drafting of internal rules.