Environmental Protection Act, last amendment in 2025

The Environmental Protection Act provides the legal framework for safeguarding Bulgaria’s environment, regulating pollution, and ensuring sustainable use of natural resources. It establishes principles such as the polluter-pays principle, sustainable development, and public participation, and defines the responsibilities of national and local authorities for environmental management. The law sets procedures for environmental impact assessments, permits, and monitoring, and guarantees public access to environmental information, aligning Bulgaria’s policies with EU directives and long-term environmental goals. A core element of the Act is the system for environmental impact assessment and permitting, which ensures that projects and activities with potential environmental effects are evaluated and regulated before implementation. It specifies that when determining whether or not an environmental impact assessment is required for investment proposals of certain activities and technologies (see Art 93(4)(7)(f)), one must consider "the risk of major accidents and/or disasters which are associated with the investment proposal, including caused by climate change, in accordance with scientific knowledge". It also states that in relation to air quality protection, an eco-fee will be charged for persons who own motor vehicles, due to the fact that their "design, operation or used fuel [may] cause ambient air pollution, damaging of the ozone layer and climate change" (see Art 56a).In June 2010 an Amendment to the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) was approved by the Council of Ministers and the National Assembly. The new legislation creates the main legal framework of the Bulgarian National Green Investment Scheme (NGIS) and allows the Bulgarian government to participate in the International Emission Trading mechanism according to the Article 17 of the Kyoto Protocol. EPA defines the entire process from selling of AAUs to "greening" of the revenues. EPA empowers the National Trust Eco Fund (NTEF) to administer and implement the NGIS. NTEF elaborates rules for selection, assessment and approval of projects that would reduce emissions and would be reimbursed by the NGIS.