BULGARIA EXPERIENCE OF AUCTIONING SEIZED REFRIGERANTS AND THE

BULGARIA EXPERIENCE OF AUCTIONING SEIZED REFRIGERANTS AND THE POSITION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION Denitsa Stoyanova-Smilyanova, MOEW

Content Attempt to auction seized refrigerants DG CLIMA’s letter

Attempt to auction seized refrigerants On 24. 06. 2019 Bulgarian customs tried to auction R-404 a (777 cylinders) and R-410 a (200 cylinders), non-Union goods, at the customs warehouse of the Customs Bureau of Vidin The tender documentation states that the buyer is obliged to comply with the Regulation (EU) 517/2014 and the national legislation on F-gas in order to use the goods on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria.

Results of the attempt The auction gave no bids The seized HFCs will be destroyed

DG CLIMA’s letter On 25 June 2019 Bulgarian authorities received a letter from DG Climate Action regarding the case

“If these seized refrigerants still remain under a custom procedure where they can be considered not to be in the Union, such seized refrigerants could indeed be auctioned. It would however be imperative that the auctioning is designed in a way that safeguards that the F-gas Regulation is respected. ”

“In particular, if the HFCs eventually are to be released for free circulation, the importer must be registered in the F-gas Portal and Licencing System and have an annual quota and the HFCs must not be in nonrefillable containers. Merely asking the buyer to undertake to respect the Regulation appears to be a rather

Thank you for the attention! Denitsa Stoyanova-Smilyanova