Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications

The Minister of Transport, Information Technology and Communications Danail Papazov today had a meeting with the representatives of the professional organizations in the field of road transport. The talks were held during the first meeting of this year of the Public Council for transport, information technology and communications.

The participants discussed various problems of the sector, related to unauthorized transportation of passengers, the optimization of the Republican transport scheme, the opportunities for EU funding, carriers’ compensation and others. Minister Danail Papazov said that "Automobile Administration" EA has not ceased to exercise control over the illegal shipment and therefore for the year of 2012 are withdrawn from circulation for six months 94 cars and 6 buses and for the year of 2013 - 112 cars and 2 buses. Despite these measures, it is not enough to fully address the problem.

Minister Danail Papazov said that in order to increase the effectiveness of monitoring and solving this problem a meeting was held with the Deputy Minister of Interior and Deputy Minister of Finance, during which were discussed the options for making better synergies between the institutions. Minister Papazov made a commitment in the shortest possible time, to initiate a joint meeting between the Ministries and the industry during which to discuss specific measures to deal with the gray sector. During the upcoming talks other issues related to road transport will be discussed.

Within the Public Council on railway transport priority projects were presented for funding in the sector under the Operational Programme "Transport and Transport Infrastructure" within the period 2014 – 2020. The National Company "Railway Infrastructure" proposed for financing the projects for railway lines of Sofia - Plovdiv, Plovdiv - Bourgas (phase 2), Ruse - Varna and Karnobat Cindel. Apart from that National Company “Railway Infrastructure” will apply with project proposals to the Connecting Europe Facility, as identified sites are railway lines Vidin - Medkovets and Dragoman - Sofia.

OP "Transport and transport infrastructure" was the main subject at the Council on Water Transport. The Director of "Coordination of Programmes and Projects" Directorate at MTITC, Galina Vasileva, clarified that the sector will primarily implement intelligent transportation projects that include building new systems or extending existing ones. The project to improve the navigation on the Danube, which Bulgaria and Romania will jointly apply at the Connecting Europe Facility, was also discussed.

In the field of air transport, the forthcoming adoption of the new European Regulation on Passenger Rights was discussed. The participants at the Public Council became acquainted with progress of the work done on amendments to the EU legislation. Industry representatives agreed that they would send specific motivated proposals and positions on the various points of the document.

Within the Public Council in Sector "Information Technologies and Communications", the amendments to the Law on Postal Services and the strategy for e-Government with horizon 2020, was discussed. It became clear during the meeting that both documents are under review by the interdepartmental working groups and that they will be published for public comment after completion of the work.

Deputy Minister Georgi Todorov stressed that the there is a forthcoming meeting of Working Group "Messages" which will present the options for amendments to the Law on Postal Services, prior to their aggregation.