The report was prepared by the Directorate of Public Governance (GOV) under the leadership of Elsa Pilichowski, OECD Director for Public Governance and Julio Bacio Terracino, Head of the Public Sector Integrity Division in GOV. The report was co-ordinated by Giulio Nessi of the Public Sector Integrity Division with substantial input from Ralica Ilkova of Sofia University, Petya Mitreva of the University of National and World Economy and Oswald Jansen of the American University Washington College of Law. The report benefitted from the insights and comments from Alice Berggrun of the Public Sector Integrity Division and Elsa Gopala Krishnan of the Anti-corruption Division of the OECD. Editorial and administrative assistance was provided by Meral Gedik, Petra Burai, Viktoriya Minovska, Charles Victor and Aman Joal. The Bulgarian translation of the report was prepared by Ralica Ilkova and Petya Mitreva and edited by Viktoriya Minovska.
The report was carried out as part of the project “Overall reform of the administrative penalty proceedings” with funding by the European Union via the Structural Reform Support Programme and in co-operation with the European Commission's Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM). The authors thank in particular Cristina Luchici and Vladimir Isaila of the European Commission's DG REFORM for their support and contributions to the report.
The OECD expresses its gratitude to the Government of Bulgaria as well as all the public institutions that took part in the process for their co operation, in particular the Council of Ministers of Republic of Bulgaria, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; the Ministry of Interior; the Ministry of Energy; the Ministry of Health; the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Forestry; the Ministry of Economy; the Ministry of Culture; the Ministry of Youth and Sports; the Ministry of Education and Science; the Ministry of Environment and Water; the Ministry of Defence; the Ministry of Justice; the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works; the Ministry of Transport, Information Technology and Communications; the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy; the Ministry of Tourism; the Ministry of Finance; the State Agency for E-governance; the State Agency for Metrology and Technical Supervision; the National Revenue Agency; the Customs Agency; the State Financial Inspection Agency; the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency; the Executive Agency for Fisheries and Aquaculture; the Agency Road Infrastructure; the Executive Agency "General Labour Inspectorate"; the Agency for People with Disabilities; the Executive Agency "Road Traffic Administration"; the Executive Agency "Maritime Administration", the Executive Agency "Railway Administration"; the Executive Agency for Exploration and Maintenance of the Danube River; the Directorate General “Civil aviation administration”; the Consumer Protection Commission; the Financial Supervision Commission; Burgas Municipality; the Inspectorate of Sofia Municipality and the Regional Directorate of Forests – Lovech. Finally, Krasimir Bozhanov and Iskren Ivanov from the Council of Ministers’ Modernisation of the Administration Department and, until May 2021, Petya Tyankova from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for Judicial Reform deserve special mention for co-ordinating all the activities, including the questionnaire answered by over 30 entities, the virtual fact-finding mission held between March and April 2021, and the virtual workshop organised in September 2021 where the preliminary recommendations were presented and discussed with representatives from public institutions and academia.