European Commission takes Bulgaria to ECJ over EU procurement rules
The European Commission said on December 11 that it has decided to refer Bulgaria to the EU Court of Justice (ECJ) over its failure to correctly transpose EU public procurement rules.
As part of its latest infringements package, the EC said that Bulgaria did not correctly implement Directive 2014/24/EU, excluding “certain privately owned medical establishments from the scope of EU procurement rules, even when these entities receive the majority of their funding from public sources.”
This exclusion is not in line with the definition of “bodies governed by public law” set out in the directive, thus restricting the scope of application of the directive, the Commission said.
Although the EC acknowledged that legislative amendments that would “partially [address] the issue” had been tabled, it also noted that these amendments have not been passed by Parliament, prompting the Commission’s decision to refer the case to the ECJ.
This takes the number of ECJ referrals of infringement cases against Bulgaria to seven this year, following six cases referred to the court last year and seven more referred to the ECJ in 2023.
In its December infringements package, the Commission also said that it was sending a reasoned opinion, the second stage of the infringement process, regarding Bulgaria’s failure to apply EU rules on treatment of waste.
The rate of separate collection of municipal waste was still low in Bulgaria, with the result that most of the generated waste was landfilled, with statistical data showing little improvement in 2023 compared to five years earlier, according to the Commission.
The EC said that Bulgaria had not adequately addressed the issue and still had “insufficient capacity” for treatment of waste before landfilling. It said that Bulgaria had two months to reply to the reasoned opinion and take necessary measures, otherwise the EC may decide to refer the case to the ECJ.
(Entrance to the Berlaymont building, headquarters of the European Commission. Photo: EU Audiovisual Service)
Please support independent journalism by clicking on the button below. For as little as three euro a month or the equivalent in other currencies, you can support The Sofia Globe via patreon.com and get access to exclusive subscriber-only content:
