Legal issues in the property, use, preservation, and management of agricultural lands in Bulgaria

Georgiev, Minko (2024) Legal issues in the property, use, preservation, and management of agricultural lands in Bulgaria. AGRÁR- ÉS KÖRNYEZETJOG / JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL LAW, 19 (37). pp. 135-170. ISSN 3058-0447

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Abstract

This article reviews the subject of ‘agricultural lands’ in Bulgaria from a legal aspect, for the period 1878-2023. It analyses the normative acts, legal consequences and the most important legal changes that the land reforms in the country derive from. There is a review of the processes of restitution, land-settlement, and limitations of property; the initiation of cadastral maps and other events and initiatives related to them; legal actions of the administrative and judicial organs; and decisions related to the judicial and constitutional control, related to the owners and users of agricultural lands. There is some detailing of how the latter perform their legal rights to the land in certain cases. The study is provisionally divided into three sub-periods: the first presents legislation in Bulgaria related to agricultural lands in the period after the establishment of the Third Bulgarian State. It gives explanation to some important moments, deriving from the historical participation of the country in the political events related to the Balkan Peninsula and the First World War, as well as to the policies of land-settlement, organisation and cooperation of the agricultural subjects; establishment of the first administrative bodies; and the administration of the processes related to the property and in particular to the agricultural land. The second period reflects on the legislation defined by the collectivisation and expropriation of the private property, the limitation of the economic relations in regard to the agricultural lands, and the following redefining of the legal institutes related to the property of agricultural land. In a sense the first two parts of the article give answers to the reasons and the need for the last land reform performed after 1989. A milestone in the article is the process of restitution as well as the problems of the legal doctrine of the last period from 1989 until 2023. Apart from identifying the most important problems of the management of the legal aspect of the restitution processes, the article provides a short review of the new course and the ‘curve’ of the legislation regarding agricultural land. The newest changes in the trajectory of the public relations and the legal challenges deriving from the legal order in the European Union are presented, including: legal contradictions of the Bulgarian legislation with the law of the EU; reflection of the structural funds over the legal processes related to the agricultural lands; and the ‘green’ payments and consolidation of the property in agricultural lands. At the end there are some suggestions for the improvement of the legal framework regarding the agricultural lands in the country. The article uses several legal methods, including legal-historical, positive legal analysis, and a normative approach in explaining the offers suitable for the change of the legal framework regarding agricultural lands.

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