site.btaEC Terminates Infringement Proceedings against Bulgaria for Exchange of Information in European Criminal Records Information System

The European Commission has terminated the infringement proceedings against Bulgaria, initiated due to incomplete implementation of the obligations for exchange of information with the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS), said the press centre of the Ministry of Justice on Wednesday. The procedure against Bulgaria, for incomplete implementation of the provisions of Council Framework Decision 2009/315/JHA from 26 February 2009 on the organization and content of the exchange of information extracted from criminal records between Member States, was initiated in 2021.

In the period from the announcement of the procedure until November 2024, the Ministry of Justice has taken the following measures to ensure the workflows:

• A new information system has been implemented with data from the 113 district courts and the Central Criminal Records Bureau under the Ministry of Justice;
• Processes for persons with a clean criminal record have been automated;
• A structured form of the criminal record bulletin has been introduced, which facilitates the automated exchange of criminal record data with the Member States via ECRIS;
• Automated tools have been developed for automated processing of information received on convicted Bulgarian citizens on the territory of the EU;
• Work processes have been changed in order to process the received inquiries more quickly.

The decision to terminate the infringement procedure against Bulgaria under the Framework Decision was taken at the meeting of the European Commissioners on March 11 this year, the statement said.