Bulgaria modernises requirements on conducting health-and-safety instruction at work

Bulgaria is modernising rules aimed at keeping up with the developments in the employment sphere, including in the context of remote work and minimising employer expenses. To this end, on 27 September 2024, amendments will take effect to Ordinance No. РД-07-2 of 16 December 2009 on the conditions and procedure for periodic training and instruction of employees on the rules for ensuring health and safety at work, issued by the Minister of Labour and Social Policy, as amended and supplemented.

Background

Under Bulgarian law, employers have the obligation to provide all employees with appropriate instruction on health and safety at work in accordance with the specific nature of the occupation and the workplace. The employer might be required to conduct, subject to the nature of the work and other circumstances, the following types of instruction:

• initial;
   
• in the workplace;
   
• periodic;
   
• daily; and
   
• extraordinary.

So far, there has not been an explicit provision permitting the conducting of health-and-safety instruction remotely. This uncertainty led to the widely held practice of performing the instruction on-site only. Each type of instruction had to be performed and certified separately. Based on explicit provisions, certification could be done only on paper through instruction books structured according to the Ordinance No. РД-07-2 of 16 December 2009 on the conditions and procedure for periodic training and instruction of employees on the rules for ensuring health and safety at work. Each employee that completed the 'initial' instruction process received confirmation notes in hardcopy paper form.

Amendments

After the amendments to the Ordinance come into effect on 27 September, the following changes will be in place:

• It will be explicitly permitted to perform health-and-safety instruction at work either on-site or remotely.
   
• Where the instruction has taken place remotely, certification can be done through electronic documents signed with a qualified electronic signature.
   
• Hardcopy paper instruction books will continue to be used for on-site instruction but official confirmation notes for initial instruction will no longer be used.
   
• Initial instruction and workplace instruction can be conducted simultaneously for companies with less than 50 employees or with limited production activities, and for employees who work remotely.

The changes will require that employers review and update their internal procedures governing health-and-safety instruction for the workplace to ensure that it is compliant with the law and that the new opportunities afforded by the amendments can be properly utilised.

For more information on the changes and how they could affect your business, contact your regular CMS legal professional or these local CMS experts: Eva Petrova and Nadya Chukova.