MPs Refused to Remove the "Civil Liability" Sticker

The Transport and Communications Committee of the National Assembly rejected on first reading the proposed changes to the Road Traffic Act, which provided for the elimination of the physical "Civil Liability" sticker and new rules for spending millions on safety, BTA reports.

Blocking the Initiative

The bill, submitted by MP Bozhidar Bozanov and a group of MPs in early June this year, met with weak support among the members of the relevant parliamentary committee. The proposal received only four votes "for", while two MPs were "against", and the mass vote of 16 votes "abstained" practically blocks the legislative initiative at this stage.

End of unnecessary paper

One of the key ideas in the rejected project was the removal of the paper sticker for mandatory car insurance. The proponents argue for the measure with the existence of working electronic registers, which allow control bodies to carry out official checks in real time, without requiring a visual inspection of the glass.

According to their reasoning, physical stickers are completely unnecessary and “create an additional administrative burden for citizens“. The rejected draft also provided for requirements for placing any stickers on the windshield to be introduced only by law, and not through lower-ranking by-laws.

Control over safety money

The other significant emphasis in the rejected texts concerned the management of funds from the specialized road safety fund. It was proposed to introduce a strict classifier of goods and services that can be financed, approved by the State Agency “Road Traffic Safety“ based on the European Common Terminology Dictionary for Public Procurement.

The aim of the change was to ensure full transparency by managing projects through the National Investment Management System (SIM). The deputies insisted that municipalities and other state institutions also receive direct access to financing. Currently, the millions from the fund are being used as a priority by the Ministry of Interior, with the proponents pointing out that a significant portion of the money is being spent mainly on purchasing cars, rather than on effective prevention on the roads.