With the summer season coming and the arrival of the first tourists at Bulgaria’s Black Sea resorts, the issue of the management of the beaches along the coast has resurfaced.

According to the Bulgarian constitution, the beaches along the coast are exclusively state property. However, the state - more specifically, the Regional Development and Public Works Ministry, gives the management of the beaches to concessionaires, who must provide cleaning and lifeguard services.

At the beginning of 2008, it emerged that the concession contracts for some of the major beaches were to expire and the ministry had not announced a tender for new concessionaires, supposedly waiting for amendments to the law on the Black Sea coast. The law would rule that the beaches not given on concession to private investors would be conceded to the municipalities for management, Kapital weekly said.

To resolve the situation, the Cabinet decided to change the law on concessions and to prolong the existing concession contracts until the end of the year, postponing the new tenders for 2009. The Cabinet said that by doing so, it would avoid the announcement of a tender for new owners just a month before the beginning of the official summer season.

The amendments would allow a state-owned or municipal company to get a beach on concession without a tender if it enters a joint venture with a private investor. A tender would be held only for the selection of a private partner.

If approved, the amendments would also increase the power of the regional development minister, who would be charged with finding managers for the less attractive beaches and give them on concession for five years under a procedure yet to be defined. Until now, the regional authorities assigned the management of these beaches annually.

Kapital quoted tourism industry representatives as saying that the amendments would only temporarily resolve the concession problem, but would increase the risk of pollution of the Black Sea and would cause problems to the tourism business. Besides, the concession-giving procedure was complicated and slow.

Parliament is yet to debate and vote on the amendments in the law on concessions, already approved by the Cabinet.

Meanwhile, the concession contracts for the beaches in the resorts of Albena and Zlatni Pyasutsi (Golden Sands) expired on May 1. The contracts for the beaches of Elenite and SS Konstantin and Elena resorts expire on July 25. The state budget earned 18 million leva from concession fees of beaches in 2007. The concession fee for the Albena beaches alone was 1.4 million leva. Since 1998, the state had earned 53 million leva from fees for the 95 beaches given on concession, Kapital said.