When we are calling on 112?
When the situation requires URGENT intervention  of the emergency services (fire brigade, police, emergency, civil protection) and a team have to be sent at the accident.

How to report a sygnal on phone 112?

1. As soon as you have contact with the operator on 112  you have to specify the village, city or town you are calling from. If you are not in village, city or town, you have to describe its geographical location by landmarks – roud, river, mountain etc.

2. Formulate briefly the reason for your call – whether it concerns medical incident or another – flood, fire, etc.

3. Listen carefully the questions of the operator and succinctly respond to them. If necessary, wait to be connected with the service – ambulance, police, fire and more. It is important to be known that this communication with an operator lasts between 1 to 3 min.  During the conversation the most accurate information have to be provided about wthe  intsident.

I have two children who were 4 and 7 years old when I applied for a job in the 112 Emergency line in Bulgaria. While I was passing all phases of the recruitment I worried and was sure I will not be approved for this position. I thought that my children are too small and it will be the cause for my rejection. I was not sure whether I am suitable for the job. I did not know if I’m good enough. I was worried because I did not know the system and what is the responsibility to work as an operator in 112 Emergency line. I was afraid because I knew that lives depend on the seconds in which you are judging and evaluating the severity of the situation. The lives of someone’s mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and children depend on how quickly you are processing the signal. The lives who are depending on your judgment and professionalism. Today, nine years later, I am thankful to my husband, who saw the ad and gave me the courage by telling me that I will handle it. Today, I am thankful to my work as operator in 112 Emergency line, because I realized that life is much more valuable than I thought, and I contribute each day so many lives to be saved.

“My husband is devoted to his profession – he is burning in it and is giving everything to do his job in the best  possible way.

It hurts when in the evening he comes back at home and I see his pain and frustration. I can feel it with every part of myself; commitment that is rewarded with disrespect and is paid with a part of himself. It hurts me because people do not know how much efforts are needed to do the work and how severe the fight is. A fight with a lack of supplies, with limited powers, with humiliation from the Ministry of Interior and the ingratitude of people.

I understand people!

They have the right to be unsatisfied, but I live with this person and can see whathe is doing each day and how big his fight is. I would like, before people start to accuse and criticize officials in the Ministry of Interior, including my husband, people to thing, what is the price which workers pay and we – the people standing right next to them. ”

In 2015, 3168 people have left the Ministry of Interior.
More than 2/3 of them are working at field and are at operational positions.
From all employees quit the system 1 is a senior, 466 are managers, 688 of are at executive and 2013 are at junior executive positions.
444 employees (65%) of the 688 people on executive positions and 1345 junior executive position (67%) of total 2013 have ceased their legal relations with the Ministry of Interior in the period October to December 2015.
The number of resigned employees sharply increased in the last quarter of 2015. It is a result of the planned “reforms” in the Law on State Budget of the Republic of Bulgaria, provoked unprecedented association of the employees in the Security Sector and spontaneous protests in Bulgaria
At present part of the vacancies are advertised competitions, but due to the long process of selection and training, the deficit created in the Ministry of Interior will not be brought soon under control.
Much of the staff left the system is not only employees working in the field, but also experts who have years of experience. They are not able to pass on their experience. Their work is done by their colleagues who are repeatedly loaded and as a result – ineffective.
Currently it a new amending in the Law on the Interior Ministry is planning, but measures addressing this crisis, tools for improving of the quality of service “civil security” and convert the Interior into an effective institution are not discussed – on the contrary. The new Law is providing reduction of the social rights of the employees, an internal restructuring, creating a state-owned enterprise and the transformation of Fire Safety and Protection of Citizens in Agency, but no one answers the questions how this will enhance the quality of work in the Ministry of Interior and will make citizens more safety and secure?

The most important element of the whole process is institutionalized of forms and procedures for citizen participation in reforming the Ministry of Interior. The second crucial component is uniting around the need to prepare a long-term strategy to reform the Ministry of Interior, to be adopted as the Ministry of Interior and civil society organizations and the trade unions.

1. Institutionalization of the forms and procedures for citizen participation in reforming the Ministry of Interior

One of the biggest challenges is how to institutionalize citizen participation, without making structure cumbersome and inefficient. It is therefore necessary to set up an informal group of representatives of NGOs and professional organizations to clarify the parameters of functioning mechanisms for involving citizens and procedures for consultation with government representatives. In this period of advance planning is necessary activities and measures on the one hand to be provided to explore the expectations of citizens for the “security” and to hold public consultations and to what extent the Ministry of Interior can be reformed so that to meet public expectations. It is in the process of preparation and to provide mechanisms through which citizens can participate actively in the process of monitoring the activities of the Ministry of Interior and in making recommendations for improvement. In addition the components of active and broad citizen participation are necessary to provide institutionalized form of citizenship and have the necessary expertise. Therefore, it is necessary to attract two types of organizations: organizations with expertise on the topic “security”, MoI, civic participation and preparation of program documents, as well as organizations that have access to a wide range of citizens. This format will provide on the one hand the necessary expertise will enable the realization of activities on informing and consulting the public and will fill with meaning and content activities institutionalized form of citizenship.

One of the issues that should be discussed is whether such an institutionalized structure is better to be the Council of Ministers or the Ministry of Interior.

The reasons for this to be to the Ministry of Interior are related to the specifics of the activity of this structure, which requires consultation and debate on specific issues relating efficiency of the institution and the quality of provided service “security”. The functioning of institutionalized form of civic participation to the Interior Ministry will provide direct access and opportunity to work with experts of various departments in the Ministry, which will make the process more operational and flexible.

The arguments in favor of the institutionalization of such a structure to the Council of Ministers /CM/ are more – on the one hand, they are related to the need for reform vision and long-term development strategy of the Ministry of Interior be approved and confirmed by representatives of various ministries and agencies whose activities and policies will be directly or indirectly affected by the implementation of the reform in the Ministry. On the other hand, the constitution of this body to the Council of Ministers will ensure its independence from the Ministry of Interior. Representatives of other departments with rank minister or deputy minister, will facilitate the process of adopting the proposals at the level of CM and ensure the adoption of most of the recommendations of this authority. In the long term, the creation of such a structure to CM will allow expanding the scope of activity, interpretation of the “security” in much broader and synchronize visions for development and reform of the judiciary and defense.

2. Merging around the need to prepare a long-term strategy and unified vision of the Ministry of Interior

Before proceeding with the preparation of long-term strategy the civic and professional organizations, and the representatives of legislative and executive power need to unite around a common vision for the Interior Ministry in the long run. The preparation of a common vision is associated with both study of the attitudes of the public and lobbying and consultations with government officials. The main issues that need to be discussed and be reached a consensual decision, before starting preparation of the strategy are:

1. What are the structural changes that need to be implemented? What are the points that need to come out of the Ministry of Interior /MI/ and to which ministries and agencies will be transferred? How to ensure the protection of the rights of employees and compliance with the agreement, which they have concluded when they started to work in the Ministry. What happens to links as the Academy of Ministry of Interior, The Institute of Psychology of Ministry of Interior and others ?
2. Whether the direction of the reform will be decentralization or centralization? In case of decentralization, how to improve the qualification of the teams that will manage the structures on local and regional level? How to realize subsequent control and prevent corruption? How will the same quality of the provided service “security” in the whole country be ensured.
3. How to reduce the political influence in the work of Ministry of Interior? Could chiefs of police stations and / or directors of regional management of Ministry of Interior be elected together with the candidates for mayors in the case of reform towards decentralization? What are the mechanisms in case of decentralization that will allow debate on level of concepts of development and ensure transparency and fairness in the election / appointment? How limited political “purges” and the expiry of qualified personnel of the Interior Ministry?
4. What are the mechanisms and models that will enable active aging employees? How will the principles of lifelong learning be introduce? How to ensure continuity between employees?
5. What is the extent of “opening” of the Ministry of Interior for citizens and what are the specific actions that need to be taken? What are the topics on which information is characterized as classified and how stakeholders can rally around this decision?
6. How to overcome the accumulated prejudices and stereotypes regarding employees in MI? How to debunk the myths and what are the organizations and / or institutions that need to do it? What is the communication strategy, which is necessary to prepare and what are the main priorities?
7. Which are the organizations and institutions that work with children and young people and develop their active citizenship and legal culture in the interaction with the Ministry of Interior? How to combine principles of formal and informal education?
8. How Ministry of Interior interacts with other institutions at the level of delivery of service “security” and how this interaction can be improved? What tools need to be implemented and how to measure their effect?

Ministry of Interior is the only unreformed Ministry in Bulgaria, but also one of the ministries in which structural changes are the most numerous. One of the major structural changes that contribute the MoI to become a mega-ministry is the closure of Ministry of Emergency Situations and merger it with the MoI  /29.07.2009 /. This change is one of the main reasons the scope and functions of the police to be expanded and the number of the employees to be increased as well. The functions for civil protection as nonspecific for MoI, took a very large financial, human and time resources for establishment of a model which ensures that mechanically merged with the Ministry of Interior structures will begin to function as part of the whole Ministry. The stress of merge, which endured as officials closed the MES and MoI, the lack of clear rules of interaction, changed principles of operation and interaction between institutions is extremely large. Shortly before the “merger” of officials from the MES, the MoI- in 2007, was “released” from the National service “Security” and the “protection of the means of communication” and a State Agency “National Security” was established. As a result of structural changes to 2009., the number of MoI’s employees is nearly 68 000 people.

In the period 2009-2014 structural changes continued. In 2013, from the the structure of the Ministry of Interior were removed General Directorate “Combating Organized Crime”/CDCOC/ and Specialized and the “Operational technical operations”/SDOTO/.  CDCOC became part of National agency “Security” and SDOTO became the State Agency “Technical Operations” to Council of Ministers. Alongside these structural changes, the names of regional units and departments were changed many times and the number of employees continued the trend for reduction and in 2014 employees in MoI  was  49 500.

All these changes were made without the participation of citizens, without an assessment of their impact on the quality of services delivered by the Ministry of Interior, and especially without an assessment of their impact on the employees. This  long-standing practice is one of the reasons MoI to become the (auto) oppressive, suspicious, dehumanized, formal and disengagement institution in which the prospect of long-term reform and involving citizens in its implementation is assessed as a threat that must be limited, not as an option which should be used.