Five years have passed since the beginning of the regulatory reform in Bulgaria, launched with the amendments and supplements to the Law on Normative Acts in force as of 4 November 2016, which introduced the modern European instruments guaranteeing quality legislation, such as regulatory impact assessment and structured public consultation.
The new second logo of the Center for Regulatory Impact Assessment is 5/10 for several reasons. First, we mark the first 5 years of the regulatory reform. Second, this year our organisation celebrates 10 years since its establishment. Third, 5/10 equals ½, and the regulatory reform in our country has so far happened by half (even less), because it is severely limited, compromised and hence useless, especially in cases where the legislative process begins on the initiative of members of parliament.
And all this because it is an example of regulatory failure. The requirements for the rule-making process imposed by the reform are not observed, or are complied with formally and partially. There is a persistent violation of the rules by those in power when adopting rules that are binding on us. This has led to widespread distrust and even hatred towards them and their acts.
In addition, since the start of the regulatory reform in November 2016 there has been a tangible shift of legislative initiative from the Council of Ministers to individual members of parliament. The summarised data for the five-year period show a ratio of 57% to 43% between the share of acts submitted by members of parliament and those submitted by the Council of Ministers. This ratio, and respectively the ratio between the shares of the drafts that became laws authored by each of these two entities with the right of legislative initiative, are largely indicative of the extent to which the current legislative process is protected from subjective influences expressing interests other than the public interest, and the extent to which it contains means or mechanisms guaranteeing objectivity in taking legislative decisions.
Thus, in the fifth year we can safely conclude that the regulatory reform in our country is rather a RE:FORM or a RIFORM, and that the battle between Tѐsla and the teslà (the carpenter’s adze), which we have been talking about since 2016, is only just beginning …
All this can be clearly seen from the data presented in the report specially prepared by the Center for Regulatory Impact Assessment Five years of regulatory reform in Bulgaria.