A ruling of Bulgaria’s High Administrative Court has cheered environmental campaigners seeking stronger protection for the Pirin National Park against alleged threats of development.
Bulgaria’s High Administrative Court on Tuesday annulled a decision of the former Environment Minister, Irina Kostova, about adopting a management plan for the Pirin National Park without undertaking a prior environmental evaluation.
Kostova, who was part of the provisional government of Ognyan Gerdzhikov in the spring of 2017, allowed actualization of the management plan for the 2014-2023 period, claiming that it only allowed activities that did not represent “a significant threat to the environment”.
The court ruling targets a previous change to the plan, and is not directly related to a later decision of the current Environment Minister, Neno Dimov, in December 2017, that has sparked nationwide protests.
Dimov then convinced the government to allow changes to the plan that environmentalists said may permit construction in the National Park.
However, opponents of Dimov’s decision claim that the case is similar, and say the court has created a welcome precedent that could lead to the later decision being overturned as well.
WWF-Bulgaria, which brought the Kostova decision to court and is leading the case against Dimov’s decision, praised the ruling and reminded Dimov that he has promised to abide by the decisions of the court.
The ruling is not final and the ministry has 14 days to lodge an appeal.
In a separate development, on Tuesday, the Court of the European Union ruled against Bulgaria for failing to fulfil its obligations to protect an important area for rare birds in the Rila mountain area.
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