Export of Worls of Art

The Minister of Culture Prof. Velislav Minekov and the Director of the Customs Agency Pavel Tonev signed an Cooperation Agreement between the Ministry of Culture and the Customs Agency. The agreement, which is already in force, reduces the administrative burden of leaving the customs territory of the European Union and in particular – the territory of our country, of declared for “export” objects and works of art that are not cultural values ​​in the sense of the Cultural Heritage Act (CCA).

Thanks to the signed Agreement between the Ministry of Culture and the Customs Agency in declaring a customs regime “export” of works of art under Art. 7, para. 4, items 1-4 of the LCA, which are the property of their authors, it will already be sufficient to submit a declaration of authorship by the exporting author under Appendix № 1 of the Agreement. In case of export of works of art, not older than 50 years, or objects under art. 7, para. 4, item 3 of the LCA, the exporter will submit a declaration of origin and method of acquisition, according to Appendix № 2 of the Agreement. A hypothesis is also provided for the export of residual material – a substance that has no functional or artistic purpose under Art. 7, para. 4, item 5 of the LCA – the exporter will provide a declaration under Appendix № 3 of the Agreement.

The subject of the Agreement are: machine-minted coins and coin-shaped objects, which are not important for the research and the exposition value (except for especially rare and valuable specimens – cultural values); machine-made objects that do not bear the signature or mark of their authors, or are produced in large quantities and do not have significant cultural, scientific or artistic value, or are not related to a historical figure or event; works of art that are the property of their authors or are not older than 50 years; antiques that are not works of art and are not older than 100 years, except for particularly rare and valuable specimens – cultural values; residual material – a substance that has no functional or artistic purpose according to the LCA.

An important detail of the Agreement is that, at the request of the Ministry of Culture, the Customs Agency will provide references to the declarations submitted, thus further ensuring export controls.

The Agreement on cooperation between the Ministry of Culture and the Customs Agency, as well as the samples that the exporters of the items described in it will fill in, are published on the official websites of the Ministry of Culture and the Customs Agency.

Тhe documents are in Bulgarian only, please see the links in the text above or visit the Bulgarian section for the documents themselves.