Irakli is under threat. Again.

One year after Environment and Water Affairs Minister Djevdet Chakurov issued a ban on construction in the whole area of the Black sea virgin beach, he was asked to prolong it because it expired on August 4.

Chakurov did so, but with a significant detail: he excluded the one square kilometre (100 ha) that was the initial reason for the ban - the area that had been given to Swiss Properties (SP) and AKB Fores to build a holiday village.

At the regular weekly Cabinet meeting on August 2, Chakurov said that the construction on 75ha right next to the border of Irakli Nature Park (a potential Natura 2000 site, postponed for further consideration) and on 17.5ha near Emona village, as well as on a separate 10ha in the area could proceed. The expired ban covered 39 sq km (3900ha), while the current one concerns about one sq km less.

Initially, immediately after the Cabinet meeting, the Bulgarian-language media gave positive coverage to the decision, not noting the exceptions allowed, and environmentalists were satisfied that the construction ban had been prolonged. After the truth emerged, environmentalists and individuals went to the Ministry of Environment and Water Affairs (MOEW) building on Sofia’s Slaveikov square to protest and to request a meeting with the authorities.

In the area of Irakli there were 17 investment proposals. Environmental impact assessments (EIA) have been prepared for only two, said Balkani Wildlife Society managing board member Andrey Kovachev during a meeting between environmentalists and other individuals with Chakurov, his two deputies Jordan Dardov and Atanas Kostadinov, and Protected Areas administration chief Mihail Mihailov on August 3, Bulgarian-language Mediapool reported.

According to MOEW, none of the 17 investment proposals had been approved in the context of a Regional Development Plan (RDP), which meant that the process of receiving construction permits had not been completed. According to amendments to the Biodiversity Act about the requirements of the EU Habitats and Birds Directives, an EIA is obligatory for investment proposals in Natura 2000 sites. On August 2, the Government also approved the new regulations to assess the compatibility of projects with the directives’ requirements.

Kovachev said that in practice this meant that the excavators at Irakli, that are ready to start digging at the one sq km site, are still in violation with the law. He said that any municipal action to allow construction was also illegal, because of the absence of an EIA.

Chakurov said that he would not allow any building activities to start in the area in contradiction with the RDPs.

On August 6, the Regional Inspectorate for Environment and Waters (RIEW) - Bourgas told Nessebar municipality, which is in charge of issuing construction permits in Irakli, that it could not do so there. Before this could happen, the compatibility of investment proposals with Natura 2000 must be assessed. RIEW employees said they would inform each investor about the requirements.

SP managing director Stoyan Zahariev said that, according to him, any investor who wants to change the status of land from agriculture to construction had to have a Natura 2000 assessment. He said that SP had bought 9000 sq m (0.9ha) of construction land where it plans to build its holiday village, and the company was the first to obtain a positive EIA. Zahariev said they had the necessary documents to be exempted from the construction ban.

However, SP does not have a construction permit from Nessebar municipality.

“We will not hurry up because the material interest in these territories is very big,” Zahariev said. In his words, Irakli association representatives and SP had sent nearly 15 letters to MOEW during the one-year construction ban but they had no answer to their request to meet Chakurov. The only response they received was to a letter to Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev. This reply said that according to the Cabinet decision, Natura 2000 will only include zones that are not part of the already approved RDP.

Zahariev said that in the nearby villages of Banya, Emona and Obzor investors had appeared who wanted to buy the local land for one lev a 1000 sq m (0.1ha). He said these investors were trying to persuade local people that after their land becomes part of Natura 2000, it would “cost nothing” and therefore now already was worth nothing. According to him, this was a key point of tension between landowners and environmentalists.

The Irakli landowners association registered a shareholders company one week ago, Zahariev said. In his opinion, they aimed at starting partnerships with local and central authorities.

“We will have to buy more land to build cleaning and pump stations, as well as the whole infrastructure near the future resort zone,” Zahariev said. Because all land in these areas was private, the public-private partnership principle was needed to build the necessary infrastructure, he said.

On the subject of construction, Zahariev said that the company was waiting until the Swiss owners of the company arrived in September 2007. SP is fully owned by PBI Bulgaria Property Invest AG. He said the whole investment policy of the company had changed in the past year. He said that there should be no obstacles to SP getting a construction permit. However, RIEW-Bourgas is considering issuing such a permit without a special Natura 2000 environmental assessment for violation of the Biodiversity Act.

After the recent developments regarding Irakli, WWF Bulgaria sent a detailed media statement, describing the “Irakli case” from the beginning of its certification in 1997.
Back then, the Nessebar municipality RDP was approved, which foresaw the construction of tourism facilities in the Irakli region, in the so called “Irakli resort zone”, over an area of 75ha on Emona village lands. According to the approved EIA report, in the construction area, construction at 20 per cent density would be allowed and buildings should have average 2.5 storeys. Further, in spite of the obligatory character of the EIA decision, the density was changed to 30 per cent and the number of floors to four.

There were considerable lapses in the EIA procedure back then because no assessment was done of the resort’s impact on protected habitats and species in the area in accordance with the Bern Convention, which was in effect at that time in Bulgaria. The next violation was the lack of any assessment about the RDP impact on the CORINE biotopical site Emine, defined in 1996, which includes the Vaya river and its mouth, the nearby territories, as well as the Irakli beach and its southern part.