Police and military working after retirement as civil servants shall be released on the grounds of reaching general retirement age

June 4, 2010

At its sitting held on June 4, 2010 the National Assembly adopted at second reading amendments to the Civil Servants Act. The changes provide for the possibility police and military working after retirement as civil servants to be released on the grounds of reaching general retirement age, valid for all Bulgarian citizens. The amendments regulate cases of early retirement under the Armed Forces, the Interior Ministry and the State Agency “National Security” acts. Up to now for this category of people who have benefited from early retirement and continue working with the state administration there has been no legal ground for termination of their legal labor relations on the basis of retirement, explained Emilia Maslarova from the Left. Thus they can in actual fact continue working even after the age of 63.

We would like to set a special provision concerning persons gone into early retirement and subsequently appointed as civil servants to be released on this particular ground of reaching the general retirement age, valid for all Bulgarian citizens, said Monika Panayotova, one of the authors of the amendment. Until now the legal practices have been contradictory and such cases have often been ambiguously interpreted. To set incentives for the young people to work with the state administration the young GERB organization has moved to the Administrative Reform Council a proposal for introducing the so called fast track in the administration. This means that motivated young people with positive results should be entitled to fast career development avoiding the clumsy procedure of hierarchic climbing, Panayotova explained.

Some of the amendments to the Environment and Water Act, adopted by the M.P.s at second reading today, regulate the National Green Investment Scheme. The amendments outline the basic principles of functioning of the scheme that guarantee transfer of Assigned Amount Units (AAUs) among states in compliance with the Kyoto Protocol and their going green. All countries-buyers of such emissions are obliged to "go freen" as regards the proceeds from emissions trading, which means that such funds have to be invested in projects resulting in greenhouse gas emissions reduction.

According to the texts the National Green Investment Scheme is aimed at providing financial and institutional support to investment and other projects leading to of greenhouse gas emission reduction on the territory of the country or other positive effects. The scheme includes the organization of green investment projects related activities such as projects valuation, validation and financing through the National Trust EcoFund. It also includes the monitoring and control of the projects implementation. The emissions sale procedure is opened at the request of the parties involved in the international emissions trade. The negotiation talks are held by three ministers: of finance, environment and economy, energy & tourism. They are also entitled to signing the sale contract.

A discussion was evoked by the proposal of GERB’s Kostadin Yazov to the effect that in case of no specific requirement by the emission’s buyer, the proceeds from the deal should go to the state budget. According to Rumen Takorov from the Left this proposal "turns" the law "upside down". Minister Nona Karadzhova of Environment and Water replied that up to now nothing has been done with regard to GHG emissions. In her view the text concerned provides an opportunity for flexible approach whereas the proceeds from the emissions trade would be anyway utilized solely for environmental projects and activities. At the Left’s request the M.P.s went into recess after which the parliamentary oversight began leaving the amendments unadopted.