site.btaBulgaria Only Country in EU to Not Have State Institution for Civil Protection

Bulgaria is the only EU country without a state institution to conduct civil protection policy, Varna Free University Rector, Prof. Petar Hristov, told BTA. He has been at the helm of the university since early 2019, having previously served successively as head of its National Security Department and dean of the Faculty of Law. Hristov is the founder of the the first university degree programme in national security protection in Bulgaria (excluding state universities). His research interests lie in security rights and risk management. He has authored more than 100 scientific publications and has presented lectures at leading universities in Poland, Croatia, Ukraine, Russia, Turkiye, Cyprus, Serbia and the US.

In Hristov's words, according to the Additional Protocols to the 1944 Geneva Conventions and the 2007 Lisbon Treaty, under which Bulgaria has obligations, civil protection means performing humanitarian tasks aimed at preventing and protecting people, the environment and property against all kinds of natural and human-induced disasters, including military ones. This presupposes that EU countries should have departments in their executive branches to perform two important functions - to conduct public policy in the field of disaster protection and to coordinate in times of peace and war all activities carried out by various administrations, public organizations and companies, he said.

In 2024, Bulgaria is the only EU country to not have a state institution to conduct civil protection policy, following the closure of the Ministry of Emergency Situations on 27 July, 2009, Hristov stressed, adding that, in 2011, when the Civil Protection General Directorate was shut down, the legal term 'civil protection' permanently imposed in public international and EU law fell out of circulation in Bulgaria's domestic laws, replaced by terms such as 'disaster risk management', 'disaster risk reduction', 'non-military component of the defence system' or 'contribution to national security in peacetime'. Hristov is adamant that 'civil protection' should be restored both as a legal term and as a state agency that defines and implements state policy.

After the closure of the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Civil Protection structures, the amended legislation has relinquished the government from many responsibilities, delegating them to local authorities. Burdening municipalities by increasing disaster risk reduction responsibilities without taking into account their limited budgets and increased staff workload explains why they are not prepared for conducting emergency evacuation operations, he explained. He stressed that there is no information on the municipalities’ stock of means of protection available, the condition of shelters and how much of the population can be sheltered in them, and whether the EU standard for providing a stock of tents, camp beds, sleeping pads, field kitchens, utensils, among others, has been met.

Assuming that these are "technical" problems, the complex issue is how to adopt the modern technological type of organization of civil protection activities based on the nature-society system, the expert added. According to him, the capability to predict and provide early warning of possible natural and man-made disasters is of paramount importance. Nowadays, the level of this capability is accepted as a universal criterion for assessing the level of development of any society, Hristov stressed, recalling that Bulgaria has untapped potential, including access to satellite information, a developed network of geographic information systems, and software capacity capable of integrating information flows and linking them to risk and threat models, to respond and neutralize possible consequences. However, for the necessary changes to take place, a radical change in Bulgaria’s regulatory framework is needed. Without it, it is impossible for the state bureaucracy to adopt the new project-technology type of organizational behaviour, Hristov further said.