The administration against the people - or what air are we breathing? Lawyer Dimitar Ploshakov in front of FACTS

The national air quality control system has been compromised. This was announced a few days ago by Adv. Dimitar Ploshakov. The lawyer believes that the state hides and manipulates the data, because the places where the stations for measuring the purity of the atmospheric air are placed are those where there is no great pollution with fine dust particles. Since when and why is it so… Attorney Dimitar Ploshakov spoke to FACTS.

- Lawyer Ploshakov, the winter season is approaching, when people start heating with wood. Every winter, the topic of air measurement becomes relevant. Should we trust the National Air Quality Control System?
- No way. The Ministry of Environment and Water (MoEW) and the Environment Executive Agency are the last two government bodies we should trust for anything. Including the data they spread about the quality of the air we use, our children, our parents, everyone every second.

- You are suing for air quality. What stage is it…
- The case, which was filed in the Supreme Administrative Court, has not yet been moved. It was formed in May this year.

- What made you take this step?
- As is known, in Plovdiv the colleague lawyer Ekimdzhiev and his team fought a long legal battle - nearly 10 years, with a collective action against the Municipality of Plovdiv and the local Regional Directorate for the Environment. The case was that during the period 2007-2011, the municipality and the RISV did not take actions to reduce the norms of fine dust particles within the established EU standard. Despite this unprecedented success of the colleague, because the Supreme Court of Cassation condemned the Municipality of Plovdiv and RIOSV to cease inactivity within a period of one year, counted from the passing of the court decision, which comes into force immediately - within a period of July 2022, the norms of these fine dust particles to be brought in line with EU norms. They took absolutely no action. Nothing happened. Things didn't budge even one millimeter.

And the people of Plovdiv live in the conditions of an ecological catastrophe.

I have to give you at least 16 interviews about Plovdiv to explain the problems of this city. Generally speaking, Plovdiv can serve as a training base and a training ground for candidates for mayors, who will be introduced visually HOW A CITY SHOULD NOT BE GOVERNED in all its aspects. This is a completely separate topic. The success of colleague Ekimdzhiev was overshadowed by the fact that the Municipality of Plovdiv and RIOSP Plovdiv did not comply with a court decision. Apparently they put themselves above the law.

- You find that the air quality monitoring stations are placed away from high traffic intersections and in places where there is no pollution…
- Yes, here I will make a connection a little with my work. It was this collapse of my colleague's case that led me to look for alternative ways of how a state and local government could be forced to fulfill a fundamental duty – to provide their citizens with a healthy environment.

- And so we come to the topic of moving the measuring stations…
- It was a scandalous shift. In Plovdiv, we have two monitoring points that are included in the National Air Quality Monitoring System. One station was scandalously moved right in the course of this environmental lawsuit, which was initiated by lawyer Ekimdizhiev. And so then we thought that this shift had something to do with the colleague's environmental claim. That this is some kind of cynical demonstration of power, which in the course of an ecological process and when it is put against the wall, is obviously looking for some way out and demonstrates that it can do whatever it wants and manipulate the case. So I thought about how to dig it all up. The tools I had were my electronic signature and the Access to Public Information Act. I sent two applications to the Municipality of Plovdiv and to RIOSV, the answers of which provoked new questions - as usually happens - and in the end I reached a volume of 60 applications. I contacted the following institutions - Administration of the Council of Ministers, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Environment and Water, Executive Agency for Environment and Water, Regional Health Inspection – Plovdiv, National Center for Public Health and Analyzes at the Ministry of Health, all RISW in the country. It became like a private investigation. As a result, I got a complete picture. The conclusion I reached is that the air quality monitoring stations are not in their places, but are located in parks, in gardens, in green areas. Away from major pollutants. On the topic of air cleanliness, we have an EU directive from 2008 that is in force. We also have two of our regulations in force - Ordinance No. 7 from 1999, and the other is Ordinance No. 12 from 2010. The whole point of the regulations is that appliances should be with the polluters, not away from them.

- Is it real?
- And what do you think… Is that so? What all the correspondence shows. In the course of referring the institutions, I got hold of an order of the eco-minister from 2011 (b.r. – Nona Karadjova at the management of GERB), which ordered within a period of two months and urgently - that for the state administration, someone should give a two-month period is very urgent, the situation of every single air measuring point in our country must be reviewed. In the National system, we have a total of 48 points, but the essence is 30 automatic stations in 22 cities. And the location of each station should be reviewed within two months. There are workgroups, local employees are included. All this powerful administration of central and local government in the country are harnessed to review the locations of the stations. And I asked myself: “What prompted all this haste?“ In the “air game” we don't have new criteria for locating the stations, we don't have new pollutant levels set, we don't have new pollutants whose sources we have to look for… What's new? What is new is that precisely in this period, when this order is issued, a criminal procedure is being conducted against Bulgaria in the EU court for the non-implementation of this directive, which I mentioned - since 2008. A total of five criminal proceedings have been instituted against Bulgaria. Two have ended in penal decrees - one for exceeding the standards of sulfur dioxide, the other for exceeding the standards of fine dust particles. Two proceedings have been terminated and one is currently in the pre-trial phase. The fine dust particle case is C-488/15. And so because of the criminal procedure that I quoted you, an EU decision then says that “… Bulgaria has taken appropriate measures to achieve compliance of pollutants with the maximum permissible norms of the directive. That the concentration of fine dust particles as of 2014-2015 - as a result of the measures taken, in a large part of the points there is a tendency to reduce the maximum permissible values compared to 2011, 2012 and 2013 and an improvement of the average values is shown on the territory and in a large part of the air quality measurement points, and so there is a tendency to decrease both the number of exceeding the maximum allowable values of the concentration of fine dust particles, as well as the daily and annual concentrations of these values.“ The Court of Justice of the European Union, interpreting the 2008 directive, then said that the measures that member states are taking and the plans are not enough to absolve the country that failed to comply with the directive. Then in Art. 13 of the new directive already states that the European Union is not interested in what measures, what plans, what actions a country takes, but is only interested in RESULTS. Each member state must guarantee and maintain such levels of pollution as are in accordance with the set norms.

- And with the shifting of the stations, we enter the norms. Is that how it comes out?
- Yes. That's the whole truth. The 2008 directive introduces uniform criteria for all member states, a uniform method and methodology for measuring air cleanliness, including where and how monitoring points should be located. Everything is worked out in detail. This directive is transposed in our Ordinance 12 of 2010. AND IN 2011, THE SYSTEM IN OUR COUNTRY WAS DISPLACED BECAUSE OF THIS CRIMINAL PROCEDURE. This is absolute genocide that a country commits against its own people. This is comparable to the genocide of Bashar Assad and Saddam Hussein as Middle Eastern dictators in their own countries. We are at this level even though we are formally a member of the European Union. With this order from 2011 that I am talking about, a total of eight automatic measuring stations have been moved – in Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Dobrich, Pernik, Smolyan and Vidin. But that's not the only shift. In 2016, a station was moved to Pleven, for example. The general picture is as follows -

The stations in the cities of Sofia, Plovdiv, Varna, Devnya, Ruse, Gorna Oryahovitsa, Pleven, Blagoevgrad, Kardjali, Stara Zagora, Dimitrovgrad, Burgas and Nessebar are also not in place.

Thus, our administration now locates the points in green areas, in parks, in gardens, in inter-block spaces, deaf neighborhoods, peripheral streets and, if possible, away from the main pollutants. This is the policy of the state through the administration, and you ask me if we can trust their measurements. Answer yourself… The administration against the people – this is the air we breathe.