Ministry of Environment and
Water
State of the Environment Bulgaria 2003
Sustainable development and integration of the environmental considerations into other sectors’ policies - the Bulgarian experience
1. Institutional framework
A National Commission on Sustainable Development was established in Bulgaria in 1999 as a specialized commission of the Regional Development Council to the Council of Ministers. The establishment of the Commission is in accordance with the Regional Development Act, adopted by the Parliament in May 1999. The Minister of Environment and Water (MoEW) chairs the Commission and the Ministers of Labor and Social Care, Health, Agriculture and Forests, Culture, Economy, and Regional Development are appointed as members of the Commission.
The Commission’s basic functions and tasks include: assistance in the national dialogue aiming to achieve consensus on key issues regarding Bulgaria’s sustainable development; formulation of measures for alignment of the national and regional sustainable development initiatives; assessment of and recommendations for the National Development Plan and its transformation into a strategy for sustainable development.
A working group of experts from the Ministries represented on the Commission and chaired by the Director of the Executive Environment Agency has been created within the National Commission on Sustainable Development. The expert working group has adopted the basic initiatives to work on with regard to the Rio +10 process.
A number of measures have been undertaken in the past several years to improve the inter-institutional cooperation on the national level with respect to sustainable development:
· co-operation agreements;
· participation of representatives of other ministries in permanent commissions and councils with the Ministry of Environment and Water and vice versa;
· adoption of development programmes and plans by the Council of Ministers in the environmental field specifying the different institutions’ responsibilities, performance monitoring and reporting;
· establishment of ad-hoc inter-institutional working groups to solve specific problems related to the environment.
2. Implementation of Sustainable Development Principles
The Republic of Bulgaria is applying a set of instruments for integration of the Environmental Policy into the sector and regional policies as a basis of sustainable development.
2.2. Planning as an instrument for achieving sustainable development
Last update on March 2003