Parliament's transport and communications committee has approved, at second reading, changes to the Railway Transport Act because of the European Register of Vehicles (ERV). The Council of Ministers tabled the bill so that the law matches current EU rules.

This report follows our earlier story on the bill's first reading, which parliament passed without debate on 24 September.

The Railway Administration Executive Agency will be the registering body in Bulgaria and will not keep a separate national vehicle register. EU states are moving to central registration in the ERV and will transfer the data from their national registers into it. EU rules require each state to name a body that handles applications and updates the ERV with data on vehicles registered in that country.

The agency will keep only two registers: one for authorisations to put fixed subsystems into service, and one for authorisations to place vehicles on the market for use on Bulgaria's railway network.

The second group of changes covers the rights of rail passengers and also follows EU regulations. The definitions of "person with disabilities" and "person with reduced mobility" are dropped, because the law no longer uses these terms. The rights of passengers with disabilities and reduced mobility, and the penalties for breaking them, are set out in the Public Transport Act.

Under the bill, the agency must carry out a follow-up assessment of the law's impact within 5 years of it taking effect.