New Requirements for the Provision of Public Sector Information in Bulgaria

This research is a review of the amendments and additions to the Access to Public Information Act, which are in force from the end of 2023, and which ensure the introduction into Bulgarian legislation of the requirements of Directive (EU) 2019/1024 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on open data and the re-use of public sector information. The expanded scope of a basic concept of the matter, namely that of re-use of information from the public sector, the corresponding changes in the circle of obliged subjects and the introduced new principle for re-use of information of “openness by design and by default” have been examined. The analysis of the adopted legislation emphasizes the new requirements for public sector organizations in the provision of public sector information. These include obligations to publish research data, dynamic data, high-value datasets, practical arrangements facilitating the search for documents available for re-use, and reporting on progress in the field.