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Bulgaria's road to Accession

2 The Status of the Accession Process

The History of the EU

The accession process commenced in 1993 when Bulgaria signed the Europe Accession Process Agreements covering trade-related issues, political dialogue, commitments to legal approximation and other areas of collaboration including industry, environment, transport, and customs. The agreement committed Bulgaria to bring its legal framework into compliance with the EU acquis, including environmental legislation.

At the Copenhagen European Council same year the criteria for becoming member were spelled out further. The main conditions were that the applicant country had to be able to demonstrate i) stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, ii) a functioning market economy, and iii) the ability to assume the obligations and adherence to the aims of the political, economic and monetary union. In addition, adherence to EU environmental policies, including the international conventions to which EU is a party, had to be achieved.

The conditions were further detailed at the Madrid European Council in 1995, which stressed the need to create the conditions for the gradual, harmonious integration, particularly through the adjustment of the applicant countries’ administrative structures. This was further emphasised in Agenda 2000, which underlined the importance of incorporating the EU acquis into national legislation effectively. It also placed an even greater importance of implementing it properly in the field, using appropriate administrative and juridical structures.

In practical terms, the accession negotiations are carried out on the basis of a thorough screening of the 31 chapters making up the EU acquis. One of these chapters deals specifically with the environment, while other chapters address energy and regional development. The negotiations aim to establish a consensus on the status of transposing and implementing the directives and associated administrative principles.

The general progress of the Bulgarian efforts in meeting the requirements can be illustrated by comparing the overall conclusions from the 1997 screening with the recent screening in 2002¹.

Bulgaria has met the obligations set by the Laeken European Council to open all negotiation chapters in 2002. By the end of September 2002, a total of 22 chapters had already been provisionally closed. However, these did not include the chapter on the environment or the related chapters on energy and regional development.

The EU Regular Report finds that implementation and enforcement of the acquis continues to constitute a major challenge for the future, in particular because of the need to increase administrative capacity, especially at regional and local level. Relevant investments in the environment sector have produced some positive results, but the Commission finds that much still remains to be done. Also, environmental considerations in the context of other economic issues are not sufficiently considered.

During the Danish presidency, the timetable for closing all chapters and meeting the general requirements of the EU acquis has been set to 2007. This gives Bulgaria four extra years to prepare the legal framework and the administrative systems for implementing the environmental chapter and related areas.

The Roadmap for Closing the Environmental Chapter

The adoption of the EU requirements within the environmental chapter will demand a concerted effort over the coming four years prior to accession. The European Commission recognises that Bulgaria has made steady progress in aligning its legislation with the acquis in most environmental sectors and in preparing for its implementation. Administrative capacities have improved somewhat and Bulgaria has achieved a generally good level of legislative alignment, but full implementation still poses a major challenge.

However, substantial upgrading of environmental infrastructure is required, and this needs to be spread over time. It follows that, for the most investment-heavy directives, extended transitional periods can be required. Consequently, extended transitional periods have been requested for nine directives, with proposed deadlines between 2010 and 2015.

The EU Commission has prepared a roadmap for Bulgaria covering the period up to accession. The EU – Bulgaria Association Council has accepted the roadmap and it has subsequently been established as the framework for meeting the accession criteria at the Copenhagen Council in December 2002.

The purpose is to indicate the main steps that need to be taken to be ready for membership. The roadmap is based on the principle that Bulgaria is going to meet all the accession criteria and the principle that all candidates participate on an equal footing. All are expected to join the EU on the basis of the same criteria, depending on their individual progress.

For the environmental chapter, the roadmap provides benchmarks against which Bulgaria’s progress is to be monitored. These cover both alignment of legislation and development of administrative capacity.

To support the efforts in meeting the EU acquis, the Commission intends to increase progressively the EU’s financial assistance by additionally 20 per cent in 2004, 30 per cent in 2005, and 40 per cent in 2006 compared to the average assistance in the period 2001 – 2003. The support will be tied to the completion of challenges identified in the regular reports prepared by the Commission and the Bulgarian Government.

The EU has recommended Bulgaria to concentrate its resources on the preparation of detailed directive-specific implementation plans together with associated financing strategies. These plans should take into account the available resources and the need for institutional strengthening. The road map states that Bulgaria should now focus its efforts in particular on;

	environmental impact assessment,
	waste management,
	nature protection,
	industrial pollution and risk management,
	chemicals and genetically modified organisms, and
	nuclear safety and radiation protection.

Before the 2007 deadline Bulgaria will have to complete the transposition of all directives and implement major parts. Exemptions are not given as to the implementation of the framework legislation on air, waste, water, impact assessment and access to information. Also the nature protection legislation on habitat and birds protection should be finally implemented, as should all product-related legislation. Finally, all new installations should comply with the new EU-transposed legislation.

Bulgarian Policy on meeting the Requirements

Bulgarian policy is to meet the obligations within the agreed time schedules. All EU directives prior to 31.12.1999 are to be transposed during 2003 at the latest. Where there are gaps, it is the opinion of MoEW that measures will be taken to prepare the relevant legislation. This includes engaging expatriate experts through the EU Phare Twinning programme and bilateral donor projects. The government continues to give high priority to the enactment of the transposed environmental legislation.

For directives after 1999, the policy is to transpose and implement these in line with the timeframes applied to the existing EU Member Countries.

The implementation of the new legislation is regarded as being a major challenge for Bulgaria. The strengthening of the associated administrative aspects will be assisted both by the general public sector reforms and by the planned recruitment of 519 new staff to the MoEW as approved by the Council of Ministers in June 2002.

The MoEW considers the implementation of investment-heavy directives to be proceeding well. However, the overall transition of the Bulgarian economy and the capacity of industry and local governments have to be taken into account. Compared to other accession countries Bulgaria starts from a relatively low baseline, having some of the poorest regions among applicant countries and using relatively old technologies in many industries.

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