European Commission takes Bulgaria to European Court of Justice over regulation of professions
The European Commission said on December 16 that it has decided to refer Bulgaria to the EU Court of Justice (ECJ) over its failure to correctly transpose the Proportionality Test Directive (Directive (EU) 2018/958), which requires member states to thoroughly assess, prior to adoption, the proportionality of any new national regulations of professions.
The EC said that Bulgaria has failed to ensure that parliamentary amendments undergo a prior proportionality assessment and has not implemented a mechanism to ensure independence and objectivity of proportionality assessments prepared by professional organisations.
This is the sixth infringement case involving Bulgaria that the EC referred to the ECJ this year, following seven other cases referred to the court in 2023.
As part of its November infringements package, the Commission said that it opened three new cases against Bulgaria by sending a letter of formal notice, the first stage in the infringement process.
These cases were prompted by non-compliance with EU Professional Qualifications rules (Directive 2005/36/EC), the breach of the Directive on public procurement (Directive 2014/24/EU) by assigning the provision of electronic e-governmental services used by public administration to a private company, and the failure to empower its national Digital Service Coordinator (DSC) under the Digital Services Act (DSA).
Additionally, the Commission sent a reasoned opinion in three existing cases, dealing with Bulgaria’s failure to apply the polluter pays principle under the Waste Framework Directive (Directive 2008/98/EC), non-communication of transposition of the Hired Vehicles Directive (Directive (EU) 2022/738), as well as failure to transpose the Eurovignette Directive (Directive 1999/62/EC as amended by Directive (EU) 2022/362).
Bulgaria was also mentioned in another ECJ referral by the European Commission, although it is not subject to any potential penalties in that case, which is to do with UK’s failure to terminate bilateral investment treaties with six EU member states, Bulgaria among them.
(Entrance to the Berlaymont building, headquarters of the European Commission. Photo: EU Audiovisual Service)
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