Controversial Proposals for Amendment of the Forestry

At the end of last year the Council of Ministers introduced in the National Assembly a Bill for Amendment of the Forestry Act. After discussions within various Commissions, and having being adopted at first and second readings, the Bill was vetoed by the President of Bulgaria. Thus the amendments were returned for further consideration. To be adopted they will now need more than half of the votes of the Members of Parliament (MP). The president’s veto was a response to the reaction of the public which split over the issue into two groups – for and against the amendments. What provoked such a reaction? The Bill makes provision for a number of changes, but what caused the outcry and accusations of lobbyism is the proposal for the right to build ski tracks and poles for ski lifts and rope-lines in forests to be established without officially changing the purpose of the forest lands concerned as is the requirement under the hitherto effective legislation. Changing the purpose of the forest lands concerned is proposed to happen after holding tenders under the State Property Act or the Municipal Property Act, whichever is the case depending on the type of ownership of the landed property. Such tenders are to be started with: 1) A Resolution by the Council of Ministers, for forest lands that are public state property; rn2) An Order of the Minister of Agriculture and Food, for forest territories that are private state property; rn3) An Order of the Mayor of the Municipality following a resolution by the Municipal Council, for forest lands that are municipal property. With these acts a starting price and the conditions for holding the tender are determined. The starting price cannot be lower than the price for establishing the right of construction determined under the Regulation on the Valuation of Landed Property in Forest Territory. The winner of the tender must pay the price within three months of entry into force of the established right of construction. Failure to fulfill this obligation will bring about the annulment of the given limited real right. On the basis of the issued act and the effected payment a contract is entered into between and by the applicant and the Minister of Agriculture and Food, respectively the Municipal Mayor. It must be noted that this tender is part of the hitherto existing procedure for establishing the right of construction under the Forestry Act; the other stages of the procedure (i.e. conducting a preliminary coordination and an environmental impact assessment) are not excluded - at least not under this version of the Bill. As an alternative the right of construction may also be established under the forthcoming Law on Public-Private Partnership which is to become effective from 1st January, 2013. The right to build a project is valid for a time period of 30 years. After expiration of this term, the ownership of the project built passes on to the state or the respective municipality free of charge. The proposed procedure is much more advantageous for the investors than the currently effective regulation under which in order to build a ski track it is first necessary to change the purpose of the territory and to receive the ownership rights of the landed property, respectively to pay the fee for the change of the purpose of the landed property and to pay the price of the purchased land. The second is necessary, because the Ownership Act stipulates that everything built on a given landed property passes into ownership of the owner of the land. On the other hand, the right of construction provides a possibility for the holder of that right to build a project on someone else’s land and to acquire the right of ownership of the structure thus built. This means that the ownership of the building or the installations is separated from the ownership of the land. In other words – in order to build a ski track on the landed property it is no longer necessary to acquire the ownership over that landed property – hence one of the aforesaid payments is dropped. And that precisely is what creates the impression that the proposed changes are introduced under the pressure of investors. The introduction of the tender procedure somewhat clears up the suspicions, but the question of whether there will be enough participants bidding under such a procedure remains open, as there are doubts that the procedure could be used as a smokescreen for practically non-existent, fictitious conditions of competition among the participants. In general, the proposed changes are in accordance with the norms of the ecological legislation. More specifically, the assessment of the impact on the environment remains one of the key administrative acts required for the construction of any project. Discussions of the Bill in and outside Parliament continue and probably some changes will be made to its texts before it is adopted as a law.