About BDS

The Bulgarian Institute for Standardization (BDS) is the National Standards Body in the Republic of Bulgaria. BDS has been created according to the Law on National Standardization, published in 2005 (State Gazette, issue 88 of 4 November 2005). The Bulgarian Institute for Standardization is a public-private organization whose members are interested in standardization. Superior governing body is the General Assembly, electing the members of the Governing Board amongst the representatives of BDS member organizations. As a non-profit organization BDS operates for public benefit.

BDS core activities are performed through its Technical Committees and comprise developing national standards in areas of existing market needs and interest, participating in the development and approval of European and international standards, and adopting all European and part of the international standards as Bulgarian ones.

BDS Technical Committees are the bodies that develop, vote, approve or reject, amend and withdraw standards. Participants in BDS/TCs are BDS members who are interested in the respective standardization area. They are supported by Committee experts and their activities are administered by TC secretaries who are BDS employees. Each TC is led by a chairperson who is chosen amongst the Committee members.

BDS efforts are concentrated not only on the continuous improvement of the national standardization system and on the attraction of new participants in the national standardization activities, but also on the better functioning and organization of BDS work.
Taking into account the principles of standardization – balanced and equal participation, transparency and consensus, BDS makes efforts to take into consideration and to bring closer the interests of all stakeholders both in private and public sectors. This means to attract, involve in the standardization activities and to consider the interest of producers, suppliers, consumers, research and academic organizations, societal stakeholders, conformity assessment bodies, state bodies and other public organizations.

Recognizing the role of small and medium-sized business for the country’s development, BDS makes efforts to protect the interests of the Bulgarian business at European level by providing its representatives with the opportunity to express their positions and to contribute to the development of the European standards. We consider the standardization work to be extremely important and we believe that through it Bulgarian enterprises receive facilitated access to the international markets, as well an opportunity to excel with competitive means.

BDS main activities are:
• develop, accept and approve Bulgarian standards
• participate in the work of the European and international standards organizations
• publish and disseminate Bulgarian standards, draft of Bulgarian standards and standardization documents
• publish an official bulletin of Bulgarian standards
• distribute international standards, foreign national standards and drafts standards
• maintain a database of standards and standardization documents
• maintain a stock of national, international, European and foreign national standards
• maintain a specialised library
• provide standard-related services
• provide training courses and seminars on standards
• collaborate with foreign kin standards organizations
• play the role of National Enquiry Point responsible for the notification of technical standards in the framework of the Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade
• in line with Regulation (EU) 1025/2012 on European standardization provides regular information on the drafts of national standards to the European Commission, European standards organizations and to the national standardization bodies of the countries members of the EU
• develop and approve the rules and procedures of work on national standardization in compliance with the principles and rules of the European and international standardization system.

BDS bodies are described in section Structure.