MPs are due to hold a second reading of changes to the Railway Transport Act that would make the Railway Administration Executive Agency the body that registers rail vehicles. The bill is on the National Assembly's agenda.
The agency will not keep a national register of vehicles. It will enter the data in the European Register of Authorised Vehicles (ERATV).
The Council of Ministers drafted the bill to bring Bulgarian law in line with current EU rules. It says that once registration is done centrally, a separate national register is not needed. The EU requires each member state to name a registering body. That body handles applications and updates ERATV data for vehicles registered in its country. All states must move the data from their national registers to the European one.
The agency will keep two registers: one for permits to put fixed installations into service, and one for permits to place on the market vehicles meant for Bulgaria's rail network.
A second set of changes covers the rights of train passengers and brings the law in line with EU regulations. The terms "person with disabilities" and "person with reduced mobility" will be dropped from the act. The Council of Ministers says the law no longer uses them. It adds that these passengers' rights, and the penalties for breaching them, are set out in the Public Transport Act.
The Railway Administration must assess the law's impact within 5 years of it coming into force.
Ministers Dimitar Stoyanov, Georgi Valchev, Ivan Shishkov and Rositsa Karamfilova will answer MPs' questions in parliament today, in the regular Friday oversight session.