On April 19, Parliament adopted a series of texts concerning the highly debated Black Sea Development Bill. The bill is supposed to bring order to activities along Bulgaria's Black Sea coast, create a regulatory framework, set time periods for and limits to construction, and preserve natural areas.

Because of this wide range of goals, the Black Sea Development Bill attracts strong attention every time it comes under discussion. Recent progress on the issue was seen in the texts adopted on April 19, according to which beaches will become exclusive state property that cannot be declared private.

Public state property that cannot be declared private includes shore protection facilities and systems for protection from harmful impact of waters, with the exception of those constructed on state property beyond the limits of nucleated settlements. Following the adopted texts, Black Sea municipalities will be denied the right to possess beach terrains, hence, the right to offer them for private ownership.

According to the regulations, municipalities will only own beach equipment and facilities, not the beaches themselves. Municipalities will be denied the right to transform beach areas. The only exception will be dykes and areas located outside settlements.

The exact sort of beach ownership has been in the centre of attention for the past six months. It even earned mention within the ruling coalition. One of the parties, the National Movement Simeon II, supported the idea of municipalities having the right to manage beaches, while the majority coalition partner, the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), held that this contradicted the constitution, which says that all beaches have the status of a state borderline and, as such, can be ruled only by the state.

The Black Sea is Bulgaria’s entire eastern border.

The April 19 decision preferenced the BSP’s position.

Immediately after the MPs voted to leave the beaches under state ownership, mayors from Black Sea municipalities, mainly from the southern part, commented to Bulgarian-language news agency BTA that the decision was not well thought out. The mayors argued that by leaving the state, or, in this case the respective regional governor, in charge of the beaches, no progress could be made in terms of providing better quality services to tourists, the main income source (in some cases the only one) for municipalities along the coastline.

Indeed there is some logic in this line of thought. For example, since the regional governor is in charge of the beach, he or she must be in charge of the rescue services and guards at it. However, until now, this role was given to the concessionaire, who, in return, answered to the municipality if something went wrong.

Now all this should be governed by the regional governor and his or her administration. However, all negatives get thrown back to the mayors and municipalities, mayors told BTA.

It is true that people tend to blame the local municipality for everything and they do not usually care if the municipality has the right to act or not. In the tourist business, everything comes down to first impressions; mayors fear that if chaos were to happen this season because of the adopted texts, this might create a negative image of the Bulgarian Black Sea.

In another line of thought, the approved texts might be the MPs’ way of ending the very negative tendency of changing the status of beaches from public to private. This tendency was widely followed by Black Sea municipalities and the result today is numerous hotels built on the beach, in some cases less than 100m from the water.

All it took was for the respective municipal council to vote into effect a proposal that turned the beach into agriculture land, and the lucky entrepreneur had the right to built a luxury hotel. With the adopted texts, MPs removed all rights of municipalities over the beaches.

Another brave move by MPs was their decision to put a time limit on concessions. Beaches and adjacent bodies of water may be awarded under concession for a period of 10 years under the Concessions Act, MPs decided.

Other texts referred to the width of the adjacent waters, which cannot exceed 200m. The MPs decided that concessionaires would be obliged to provide mandatory activities and free access to the shore and should place signs with diagrams depicting the individual zones and the conditions of each particular concession. There should be free access to the beach secured by the concessionaire as well as signs and information about the terms of the concession itself.

Municipalities will get 30 per cent of the money paid by the concessionaire.

Two protected zones will be created, MPs decided as well: Zone A and Zone B. Zone A will have special protection status and will cover the front line of the beaches, dunes, part of the water and 100m of adjacent terrain. All construction will be banned within these limits.
Zone B territory has a special protection of resources status, MPs decided. Within this zone, construction will be allowed only if the builder meets certain criteria. The density of buildings should not be higher than 30 per cent, with the average height of buildings not more than 15m. The minimum green area should be 50 per cent of the terrain.

The freshly adopted legislation allows the construction of movable public amenities on the territories of the beaches, such as fast food outlets and sport facilities.

Mayors were denied another right. MPs set a timeline for the duration of construction in the resorts. All construction will be banned from May 15 till October 1 every year. Exceptions will be made for emergencies. Until now, a mayor had to issue separate orders, individually banning construction. The regulation will give the police the full right to interfere if the set timeline is not being met by investors, as has been the case for many years.

The bill was tabled in Parliament in an indication of Bulgaria’s commitment to the United Nation’s Agenda 21 and the Convention on the Protection of the Black Sea against Pollution. According to some MPs such as Silvia Alexieva and Roudenko Yordanov of the BSP, the bill will be adopted by the end of May. Some form of resistance might be expected from investors in one of the two zones.

Some have already invested a lot of money in different facilities along the coast and naturally want to take full advantage of the territories around their sites, Alexieva told BTA on April 23.