BULGARIA - Strengthening the Administrative Capacity of the Public Prosecutor's Office for Fighting Organized Crime

The general objective of this project is to prepare Bulgaria’s law enforcement capacity, so as to deal with violations of the EU Aquis related to circulation of cultural goods and to fight trans-national organized crime benefiting from illegal trade of cultural goods.

• To enhance the administrative capacity of the Bulgarian Examining Magistrates with regard to the following:
• To work on cases related to Regulation 3911/92, Directive 93/7 and other cases regarding international crime dealing with cultural goods
• To cooperate with the EU counterparts on a regular basis and to introduce best practices
• To develop and implement a long-term strategy and action-plan

The actions foreseen under the project are the following:

• Technical assistance aiming at the elaboration of recommendations on the existing legislation by means of the following: review and updating of the existing legislation; overview and analysis of the Examining Magistrates’ role for carrying out investigations on cases related to cultural heritage; overview and analysis of the Examining Magistrates’ involvement in cases of international scale (trafficking).
• Training sessions for the Examining Magistrates’ capacity building to work in cases of international scale related to cultural heritage.                                                                       
• Developing a nationwide internal monitoring system for crimes against cultural heritage. By studying the existing internal monitoring practices, the drafting of recommendations for establishing a nationwide monitoring system for crimes against cultural heritage will be conducted.
• Improving mutual legal assistance; analysing the practical application of the agreement provisions in order to overcome hindrances to a thorough and effective cooperation. The overall aim is to reduce the time needed to submit a rogatory letter as well as the number of rogatory letters rejected by one of the countries for formal or relevant reasons.