„Do you remember that Sofia Municipality was ordered to take measures regarding Sofia’s polluted air? Well, and the last deadline for action on this issue, stated in the Sofia City Court’s judgment, expired on 25 November 2022. Unfortunately, most of the measures that the court wrote down as mandatory for implementation have not been achieved. Legal experts have commented that this gives the citizens of the city and all those affected the right to legally seek compensation from the municipality for the damages caused to them for any exceedance of the norms from now on, without having to prove that Sofia Municipality is to blame for the exceedances.“
This is what the environmental association „Za Zemiata“ (For the Earth) pointed out, recalling also:
„At the end of 2021, Sofia Municipality was convicted for its illegal inaction regarding its obligations to manage and control the air quality activities of the capital city. The class action lawsuit was filed by „Za Zemiata“, Center for Independent Living, Type 2 Diabetes Association, Save Sofia, as well as lawyers Dimo Gospodinov, Aleksandar Kodzhabashev, Ivan Velov and Hristo Hristev.
After a case that dragged on for more than 4 years, the court ruled that the municipality, by its actions and inactions, allowed excessive emissions of fine particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), which led to health risks for citizens.
Not only that, but the court also found that the pollution continues, and therefore ordered the Metropolitan Municipality to take effective measures to remedy the problem within 12 months. This deadline expired on 25 November 2022.
Sofia Municipality achieved almost nothing in one year. The municipal authorities certainly failed to comply with most of the court orders. Including:
- No rules were adopted to provide for the introduction of any of the measures for the introduction of Low Emission Zones under Article 28a para. 1 of the Clean Air Act (CAA), together or separately;
- A comprehensive connected bicycle network was not constructed to allow for easy and safe travel between neighborhoods;
- No analysis was carried out on the feasibility of building parks in areas with excess pollution and/or green walls;
- No analysis was carried out on how urban planning affects air quality. The CO should have used the results of the analysis in the preparation of a new General Development Plan (or amend the existing one) so as to ensure an appropriate microclimate to ensure the movement of air masses and the introduction of clean air over the city.
There is also a lack of information in the public domain on whether two of the other measures of the court decision have been implemented in any way, namely: whether an assessment has been made of the measures taken so far in the transport sector and whether an analysis has been carried out on the possibilities of building condominium parking in residential and commercial areas and increasing the available buffer parking. „Za Zemiata“ has sent a request to Sofia Municipality, to which we await a response.
The only one of the many measures on which it is certain that there is any real action on the part of Sofia Municipality is the introduction of incentives for the use of alternative non-polluting methods of heating.
We would also like to remind you that after a number of unexplained delays, no decision has yet been taken to introduce Low Emission Zones (LEZ) in Sofia. According to information leaked to the press, the woefully inadequate LEZ measures are not scheduled to be introduced until December 2023, after the local elections.
„How can we expect citizens to respect the rules and Sofia to become a more European city if the municipal administration demonstrates that the legitimate prescriptions of the Bulgarian court do not seem to be binding, even when the health and lives of thousands of citizens are at stake?“
In this situation, Sofia’s citizens are well within their rights to demand concrete compensation for the lack of action by the municipal authorities in the event of subsequent exceedances of air pollution standards in the city, lawyers said.
„By its decision of November 8, 2021, Sofia City Court ruled that Sofia Municipality is obliged within 12 months to take such actions to stop exceeding the maximum permissible 35 days per year of excessive air pollution with PM10. This period began to run when the decision came into force – on 25 November 2021. „After the expiry of this 1 year period, any resident of Sofia can simply pull out the class action decision and claim compensation without having to prove anything other than the fact that the violation continues, as well as the amount of their damages.„
