Parliament Finally Puts an End to Green Extortion

Changes to the Investment Promotion Act have been made to put an end to the ability of green environmental NGOs to delay and appeal approval procedures for projects of national significance. These projects include the construction of the seventh and eighth reactors of the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant, highways, tunnels, bridges, railways, and those related to national security, reports "Eco News." The deadlines for decisions by the competent authorities during the implementation of these projects will be shortened.

The changes were proposed by Members of Parliament Delian Dobrev, Stanislav Anastasov, Mladen Shishkov, Hamid Hamid, and Zhecho Stankov.

The following changes have been introduced:

• For major investment projects of national importance, the possibility of a single-instance appeal of environmental assessments is reinstated, with the Supreme Administrative Court required to issue a ruling within six months. It is worth recalling that in 2017, the National Assembly introduced single-instance appeals to prevent the deliberate blocking of large projects by green NGOs. However, as "Eco News" reported, under pressure from environmentalists and former Minister Borislav Sandov, the Parliament reversed this decision in 2022, returning to two-instance appeals.
• The introduction of a "tacit consent" rule, whereby if the Ministry of Environment and Water does not respond to a request for an Environmental Assessment or Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) within 14 days, the request is automatically considered approved.
• The deadlines for decisions by the Ministry of Environment and Water (MOEW) and the Regional Inspectorates of Environment and Water (RIEW) on environmental procedures are halved.
• In line with practices in most European countries, the validity periods of decisions on Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) are extended from 5 to 15 years.
• Amendments to the Spatial Planning Act (SPA) allow for the General Development Plans of municipalities to be changed by order of the Minister of Regional Development or the Regional Governor, eliminating the lengthy procedures that previously took years. This change significantly eases the work of municipalities and facilitates the development of settlement systems.

All these changes are expected to provide a significant boost to the implementation of projects under the Recovery and Resilience Plan and all major infrastructure projects in the country.