The Ministry for Environment and Water Affairs announced it had heeded recommendations made by the European Commission to avoid a penalty procedure on areas excluded from Natura 2000.
Natural areas earmarked for protection under the Natura 2000 network will now be included in its remit even if they were included in cities’ zoning plans as construction lands under previous legislation. This is one of the stipulations of the latest draft bill, adopted on January 30. The U-turn comes despite the fact that legislators had previously denied receiving negative feedback from Brussels on the Government’s work on Natura 2000.
Previously, Natura 2000’s provisions were implemented only if lands were not incorporated in zoning plans. Hence natural areas were excluded from the protection network if already part of a construction scheme. Therefore, it was likely that Natura 2000’s scope would be cut from the originally envisaged 33.8 per cent of Bulgaria’s territory to about 20 per cent because most seaside regions and half of Vitosha National park were part of municipal zoning plans.
However, the Cabinet was forced to make urgent changes to its recent Natura decisions after intervention by the EC.
Half of Property Deals Still ‘Grey’
A wide discrepancy still exists between tax evaluations and prices quoted by estate agent companies, particularly in seaside and mountain resorts.
More than half of all construction and real estate industry transactions fall within the grey sector. Undeclared resources have reached inconceivable levels, according to Vassil Velev, chair of the Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association. Velev made his remarks at a recent meeting of the Association of Organisations of Bulgarian Employers (AOBE). The members of the AOBE include the Bulgarian Industrial Association, the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Union of Economic Initiative and the Bulgarian Union of Private Entrepreneurs (Vuzrazhdane).
This difference between tax evaluations and prices facilitates money laundering and corruption schemes, according to representatives of Bulgarian business associations.
Municipalities will also be able to improve services if they are vested with the right to raise tax evaluation levels and place them on a par with market levels, business leaders said.
The public would not suffer negative impacts and a large amount of funds would step out of the shadows of the grey economy, said Dikran Tebeyan, deputy chair of Bulgarian Industrial Association. However, some experts forecast that the simplistic levelling of tax and market appraisals will raise property prices and notaries’ earnings but decrease demand.
Bulgaria No Longer in the Top 10
“Travel experts have chosen their top 10 ski destinations for the current season, and the British Columbia resort (in Canada) has topped the poll for the second year running,” English-language The Daily Telegraph reported in its poll of the top ski destinations for 2008. “These are the destinations that are rated the best by some of the UK’s leading independent ski companies,” said Ian Bradley of the Association of Independent Tour Operators, which compiled the list, as quoted by The Telegraph.
The bad news for Bulgaria was that the country was no longer in the chart. Chile and Slovenia were also off the list. New entries in the lucrative ski destinations chart are Japan, Poland and Sweden.
“While the old ‘reliables’ such as Austria, Canada and France will always prove popular, there were up-and-coming destinations that intrepid skiers wanted to visit and cross off their list,” Bradley told The Daily Telegraph.
