site.btaParliament Votes to Tighten Phytosanitary Control at All Border Crossings

The members of Parliament adopted at first reading a bill to amend and supplement the law on agri-food chain management, submitted by Kiril Petkov of Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria and a group of MPs on April 26, 2023.

The report of the parliamentary committee on agriculture, food and forestry states that the bill was presented by MP Rosen Kosturkov, who explained that the amendments aim to strengthen official phytosanitary control at all border crossing points and to limit the possibility of private entities operating at the external borders of the European Union. He reminded that this is why, by a decree of the Council of Ministers, parts of the Kaptain Andreevo border crossing point were included in the list of strategic sites of national security importance.

In this regard, it is proposed that the testing of samples of animals and goods for the purposes of official control at border crossing points should be carried out only in the laboratories of the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency.