In the first procedure, the Commission is requesting Bulgaria, along with Belgium, Estonia, France and Portugal, to adopt measures necessary to implement the Directive 2007/60/EC on the assessment and management of flood risks. The Directive aims to reduce and manage the risks that floods pose to human health, the environment, cultural heritage and economic activity.

The Directive requires Member States to carry out a preliminary assessment by 2011 to identify the river basins and associated coastal areas at risk of flooding. For such zones they would then need to draw up flood risk maps by 2013 and establish flood risk management plans focused on prevention, protection and preparedness by 2015.

Member States had to implement the Directive into national law by 26 November 2009 at the latest.

Bulgaria, along with Cyprus, Latvia, Portugal and Slovenia, also face an infringement procedure for not fully implementing in their national laws the Remedies Directive 2007/66/EC aiming at strengthening national review procedures for combating illegal contract awards, for which the deadline was 20 December 2009. "Incomplete implementation of the Directive means that European businesses are being denied their rights when participating in public tenders in these Member States", the Commission said. If the Member States concerned do not reply satisfactorily to its reasoned opinion within two months, the Commission may refer the matters to the Court of Justice.

In the third procedure, the Commission has decided to continue an infringement case against Bulgaria for violating the Electricity and Gas Regulations, even though this country has addressed properly some of the violations identified by the Commission when it opened infringement procedures in June 2009.

The main concerns about the Electricity Regulation are that the provisions on network charges are not in line with the requirements of the Regulation; that the information on interconnection capacity is still insufficient; that network congestion is managed in a way which is not in line with the requirements of the Regulation; that there is still no intraday congestion management mechanism at all interconnections nor is there a common allocation procedure.

As regards the Gas Regulation, the main concerns are that no interruptible reverse flow capacity (backhaul) is offered at all

interconnection points; the transmission system operator (TSO) does not entirely respect the transparency requirements of the Regulation; that balancing rules and imbalance charges are not in line with the requirements of the Regulation; that the TSO does not offer firm and interruptible third party access services.

BTA