Bulgarian Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev pushes new driver drug‑testing labs and probes costly crash‑barrier deals

From 1 August, Bulgaria will have additional forensic laboratories to test drivers' blood for narcotic substances, a move announced by Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev after he accelerated the original one‑year schedule.

Demerdzhiev criticised the previous government for inflating public‑procurement costs, pointing to crash‑barriers that are much pricier than in neighbouring states and a 200,000 lev renovation that was replaced with far cheaper Ministry of Interior materials. He said the ministry is auditing hundreds of contracts totaling hundreds of millions of levs, will compare barrier technology and pricing with Germany, and will work with the ministries of regional development and transport. Files on road‑trauma cases have been forwarded to the prosecutor’s office to speed up prosecutions.