Regulatory Laboratories (Sandboxes) As An Opportunity To Increase The Innovation Potential And Competitiveness Of Bulgarian Companies Participating In Global Value Chains Among The High Technology Sector

The current state of high technologies Bulgarian companies are operating in an almost 'harsh' competitive environment, raising a serious question about the implementation of new regulatory approaches that would provide a suitable environment for increasing their innovative potential along the global value chains. The main goal of the paper is to analyze the experimental regulatory environment/regulatory sandboxes regulatory as part of the innovative legislation tools already implemented by the EU Member States. This approach is directly linked to supporting the unfolding of the innovative potential of European companies. In this context, issues related to the equality of economic entities in terms of access to the protected testing environment, processing personal data for experimental purposes, the responsibility of participants during testing, the impact of testing environments on the market, etc., are considered. The report outlines some of the possible risks posed by regulatory sandboxes that should be appropriately assessed in the new community regulatory framework for high technologies and the EU's new legislative framework. In this respect, the provisions related to the creation and functioning of regulatory laboratories in the proposed Artificial Intelligence Act are analyzed. Main findings of the paper are related to the competence and the need to build institutional capacity within national regulatory bodies to manage regulatory laboratories.