The 112 emergency service is building an extra call centre in Burgas for the Eurovision Song Contest. It must be ready by the end of the year, said Krasimir Dimitrov, head of the National 112 System directorate.
Building and installation work is already under way in the premises. One hall will house 112 operators and coordinators, together with staff from the police, the ambulance service and the fire service. They will take the calls linked to the contest.
Dimitrov said this will let the services react faster and work together better, and security will be at European level. The Burgas centre will be part of the whole security system during Eurovision.
A new 112 building will also go up in Ruse. It will have places for an operator and a coordinator from the Romanian side, because many of the calls concern Romanian citizens in Bulgaria or come from calls picked up near the Bulgarian-Romanian border.
Dimitrov also gave figures for the whole of Bulgaria. More than 30% of the 2.8 million calls to 112 from January to September 2026 were false.
On Monday alone, nearly 65 bomb threat reports came in across Bulgaria. Each one is handled and passed to the district police department, and in most cases an evacuation follows. Operators handle the most urgent calls in 40 to 50 seconds.
The Interior Ministry has a protocol that sets out who is responsible for what during an evacuation and a search, and it is followed, Dimitrov said.
21 people who made malicious calls have been handed over to the police. Fines total about €100,000. Among those punished are 49 people who were fined €5,000 each, because their false calls led to police, fire and ambulance teams being sent out. Dimitrov said the fines were higher in these cases because the calls tied up many people and a lot of equipment.