2024-03-21 04:52:14
The Parliamentary Committee on Regional Policy adopted the first reading of the Bill for Amendments and Supplements to the Law on Roads, submitted by Kostadin Kostadinov and a group of people’s representatives on February 8, 2024.
The draft law was presented by Kosta Stoyanov from PG “Vazrazhdane”.
The changes offer the possibility for disabled people who use electric cars to also receive free vignettes. In the current legislation, there is a requirement to obtain a vignette from the right holders, which condition electric cars do not meet, unlike internal combustion cars, namely engine displacement. Therefore, the Social Assistance Agency cannot issue the required free vignette, it is noted in the reasons of the draft law’s proponents. For this reason, it is proposed in Art. 10 c, paragraph 1 after the words, “engine volume up to 2000 cubic centimeters and power up to 117.64 kW (160 hp) to add: “as well as for electric cars with engine power up to 117.64 kW /(160 hp)” The person with a disability receives this right only for one car that is his or his spouse’s property, specified Kosta Stoyanov.
The Parliamentary Committee on Regional Policy unanimously supported the first reading of the Bill for Amendments and Supplements to the Law on Roads, submitted by Kiril Petkov and a group of people’s representatives on January 12, 2024.
The idea is to enable the sale of vignettes to be separated from the national service providers – ie. that individual entities can only sell vignettes without providing the entire service provided for in the Roads Act, Bozhidar Bojanov – PG PP-DB said at the presentation of the bill. According to him, the reduction of the commission follows from this. Bojanov said that he is inclined to discuss its value and whether it has a place in the law, but added that when “an intermediary is removed from the entire chain, it is logical that the commission will fall to some extent”. The draft law also foresees the possibility of official inquiries for cars, said Bojanov.
The reasons for the bill state that it limits the percentage of the commission for providing a service for the purchase of an electronic vignette and a route map to three percent of the value of the relevant electronic vignette or route map, with a current value of 7 percent. According to data from the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, between 17 and 23 million BGN are paid annually as commissions to the so-called national service providers only for the sale of electronic vignettes, it is pointed out in the reasons.
The national service providers advertise their websites, which are competitors of that of the road agency and the National Toll Administration, note in their reasons the proponents of the draft normative act. According to them, in this way, the suppliers invest part of the commission money in attracting additional commissions. Therefore, the bill restricts advertising on Internet pages, since the providers do not provide a market service, but only mediation.
The draft law does not explicitly limit the advertising of the purchase of vignettes through mobile integrated applications, as a number of providers (eg telecoms) provide this option as part of a comprehensive service, which increases the convenience of citizens, note the proponents of the draft law.
The texts state that the existing alternative websites for the purchase of vignettes are preserved, the regulations introduce an obligation to sign a separate contract for this type of service and increase competition by not imposing requirements on merchants selling electronic vignettes to build all the functionality required for the operation of a national service provider. A separate register is also envisaged for merchants selling electronic vignettes and route cards, completely separating them from national service providers.
The bill also introduces an obligation for the road agency to provide software interfaces to legal entities with which they can integrate their fleet management systems, thus enabling them to fully automate the purchase of vignettes. The specific methods for confirming payments (bank cards, integration with the program interfaces of commercial banks, etc.) will be determined by the regulation to the law, foresee the proponents of the draft normative act and point out that at the moment such functionalities are provided by some of the intermediaries, such as the processes are not fully automated, writes BTA.