Политика

On February 7, another meeting of the Association of Rhodope Municipalities (ARO) was held in Smolyan. It was commemorated by the signing of the first twinning agreement between the municipalities of ARO and the Greek municipalities of Xanthi, announced the deputy mayor of Velingrad Angel Toporchev. 11 mayors from Greece were present in Smolyan, as twinning is a pledge for the future good cooperation between the Bulgarian and Greek sides, including absorption of funds from the pre-accession funds of the European Union.
During the meeting of the ARO, the Mayor of Rakitovo, Georgi Mihaylov, has proposed that a request for legislative changes be sent to the National Assembly in the Law on Restoration of Ownership of Forests and Lands in a Forest Fund. The text of the request was supported by signatures from most attendees. We are putting in place (with abbreviations) the text, as the problem of restoration of municipal forests is extremely important for our region, but it continues to be also extremely controversial:
"Now existing norms in the ZVSGGF hinder the real restoration of ownership of municipal forests. Paragraph 5 of the PPP of the Act describes that no right in rem over forests and lands in a forest fund is restored. On this basis, the land commissions, under the instructions of the MAF, refused to restore forests to the municipalities on the grounds that the municipalities were not owners but acquired property rights. In municipal applications, copies of basic tax books for taxes paid by the former municipalities of the state are indicated as documents. In some of the cases, they are also presented as dominatrix. Referring to definite business plans, land commissions and representatives of the MZG accept that it is not about property, but about rights of eternal use since ancient times and call this regime of use balalki. Thus, they return to Turkish legislation and introduce concepts from it that do not exist in Bulgarian legislation. When clarifying the concept of baltalak, it turns out that this is a particularly limited property right of use on barks and forests, ceded by the Sultan to the municipalities. The size of the baltaluk was determined by the number of households in the respective village or town. The baltalki served to meet the needs of those living in the respective locality. Of a purely forestry nature, such a regime of forest use exists even now. These are the cases where foresters determine logging clearings from the population. The territories of the so-called baltalki by default are not large and do not cover the forests for which the municipalities claim. Purely lexically, the concept of baltaluk is associated with the word baltiya, and in studies it turns out that it was assumed as the end point where the voice of the rooster from the settlement was heard. Using the concept of baltalak, the MoZG, for understandable reasons (unwillingness to restore the forests of the municipalities), instructs the land commissions not to restore the forests of the municipalities. We believe that changes in the provisions of the law are needed to enable municipalities to restore ownership of forests and the documents provided by basic tax books, emlach registers and fiefdoms are accepted as fit evidence. To limit the possibility, on the basis of documents of a purely forestry nature, concerning forest management, to be accepted as documents pointing to ownership. To reject the reference to strange terms by foreign legislation, in this case imperial, without it being apparent from documents proving property rights".
Tempo