Bulgaria’s government has moved to create a “Food Safety Agency” by uniting four existing institutions.

The new Agency will be in charge of controlling the safety of foods sold on the Bulgarian market, and will in fact be set up out of the merger of the National Veterinary Medical Service, the National Plant Protection Service, the National Grain and Fodder Services, and the Food Safety Directorate of the Environment Ministry.

Minister of Agriculture and Foods Miroslav Naydenov has announced that the management of the new agency will be appointed directly by the Prime Minister.

The merger of the four above-mentioned institutions is expected to eliminate the overlapping of their functions and to allow the government to lay off 400 state employees. The government will not need to allocate funds for the new body as it will utilize the budgets of the directorates that will be shut down.

The new Food Safety Agency is going to include a Risk Evaluation Center, a research unit, called a “brain trust” by the Minister, employing 30 people.

The idea for an independent Food Safety Agency has been lingering since the term of the Stanishev government, whose three coalition partners failed to reach an agreement on which institution will be in charge of the new body.

The Borisov government of the GERB party intended to set up the agency in the fall of 2009. However, budget troubles led to cuts in the ministry budgets putting off the execution of the merger for the middle of 2010.

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