The recognition of driving licences issued in other European Union countries has not yet taken effect in Bulgaria.

No distinction is being made between the licences of foreigners from European Union countries and foreigners from a non-EU country.

"At present, all foreigners who drive cars in Bulgaria are equal in the eyes of the law," Traffic Police chief police inspector Emil Tonev told The Sofia Echo on February 26. Although Bulgaria became part of the EU on January 1 2007, there is a lot of work to do to harmonise road traffic legislation.

"We intend to change the road traffic law in the course of the year precisely because of the EU membership of Bulgaria," Tonev said.

When this is done, the driving licences of EU nationals will recognised by Bulgarian law.  Currently, only military personnel from Nato countries may drive in Bulgaria with foreign driving licences. "The idea is to put EU nationals on the same list," Tonev said.

The law currently says that a foreigner may drive a vehicle in Bulgaria with a driving license issued by the foreigner's home country for up to one year since the foreigner's date of entry in Bulgaria. If the foreigner's country has not ratified the 1968 Vienna convention on road traffic rules, the driving licence must be translated into Bulgarian. If the foreigner's country has signed the convention, the document cannot be translated into Bulgarian.

 The translation can be done by any company dealing with legalising documents in Bulgaria. For example, the US has not signed the convention and US driving licences must be translated into Bulgarian, Tonev said.  After the one-year period, the foreigner must either replace the driving licence with a Bulgarian one, if the foreigner's country is a party to the 1968 Vienna Convention, or sit the test for a Bulgarian driving licence. The latter, however, can be done only by foreigners with long-term residence permits. "We just need to have the foreigner's data in our system to issue a driving licence, which is in the form of an ID document in Bulgaria," Tonev said.

Foreigners caught driving in Bulgaria with expired driving licences may be fined up to 20 leva, Tonev said. "We intend to raise the fine at some point this year," he said.

As for driving tests, the institution in charge is the Transport Ministry and its Executive Agency Automobile Administration.

The Sofia Echo asked the ministry's Kostadin Vardev when foreigners will be able to take the driving exam in English, given that Bulgarian law does not allow an interpreter during the exam.

"The English translation of the driving tests has already been done by the ministry and the tests are being sent to the printers.

However, I do not know when the printing companies will be ready with the English version. It depends on them. I expect that very soon the English version will be in the distribution network," Vardev said.

The English version of 800 multiple-choice questions will be sold as an supplement to the Bulgarian tests. The documents will be identical but the foreigner may take the test in English, not in Bulgarian, Vardev said.

"Once you have the English version of the driving tests you can go to any driving school and start your lessons," he said.

It depended on the driving school, whether it would be willing to teach foreigners and how much it would charge them for lessons, Vardev said.

He said that there were plans to translate the tests into German, French, Spanish and Italian, but "first we want to see how strong the interest will be among foreigners in taking the Bulgarian driving licence test," Vardev said.

Tonev said that interest was likely to be strong.

"We expect many foreigners to come to apply for Bulgarian driving licences because the course is much cheaper here than in other EU states," he said.

Given that Bulgarian driving licences are recognised in every EU member state, the average price of 250 euro for obtaining one in Bulgaria will be very attractive to foreigners, Tonev said. For example, a candidate driver in Germany must pay more than 1000 euro for a driving test.  In France the average price is 800 euro.