Today, the European Commission decided to refer Bulgaria to the Court of Justice of the European Union for continuously failing to connect its national business register to the Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS), and therefore breaching the Directive ((EU) 2017/1132) relating to certain aspects of company law.
The deadline for Bulgaria to connect to BRIS was 8 June 2017. More than 4 years after that deadline and despite repeated calls by the Commission, Bulgaria is still not connected to the system. As a result, none of the functions of BRIS are available concerning Bulgarian companies. More specifically, Bulgaria's failure to connect to BRIS makes it complicated for EU citizens, companies and professionals to obtain relevant information on Bulgarian companies. Furthermore, without BRIS, business registers cannot cooperate in cross-border mergers that involve Bulgarian companies or in procedures related to cross-border branches of Bulgarian companies. This is why the Commission decided to refer Bulgaria to the Court of Justice of the European Union.
