On 13 July 2015, at the meeting of the Council for Administrative Reform chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister for Coalition Policy and State Administration, Rumyana Bachvarova, the idea of the practical introduction of mandatory regulatory impact assessment through an amendment to the Law on Normative Acts was supported once again.
“The draft Law amending and supplementing the Law on Normative Acts presented aims to create a mechanism that will improve the quality of legislation,” Deputy Prime Minister Bachvarova stressed. This will also respond to business criticism of the lack of consistency and predictability in regulatory policy. Based on data from other European countries, the introduction of mandatory impact assessment can lead to 40% fewer changes in legislation.
According to Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev, impact assessment and its submission to public discussion will also allow competition, as it gives representatives of organisations, such as those from the NGO sector, the opportunity to propose an alternative impact assessment and their own analysis during the public consultation period. During the discussion, the representatives of the ministries supported the proposals developed jointly by Bachvarova’s team and that of the Speaker of the National Assembly, Tsetska Tsacheva, with the active participation and support of experts from the Center for Regulatory Impact Assessment.
“This is a mechanism that defends the public interest, and a mechanism that is anti-lobbying and anti-corruption,” Deputy Prime Minister Bachvarova added.