Bulgaria Agriculture Ministry Set to Query EU Report

Bulgaria's Agriculture ministry will object to some of the points in the latest EU report on the country. Photo by Sofia Photo Agency

Bulgaria's Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry is going to present the EU with a list of objections over the latest European Audit Office (EAO) report.

The EAO report concluded that there had been violations regarding subsidy payments to farmers. The report found fault mainly with the 2007 set-a-side payments for common land, meadows and pastures.

Bulgaria's Deputy Agriculture Minister, Svetla Bachvarova, stated that the report of the EAO is preliminary, cited by the Bulgarian daily newspaper Standart.

According to her, there might be farmers who were not exact in declaring their lands and have stated ineligible lands. "This does not apply to all 1 500 farmers in the category code 6 - common lands, pastures and meadows", added Bachvarova. The final report should be ready in May 2009, when it will become clear if the euro funds for infrastructure projects under the ISPA programme will be unfrozen.

The EC Directorate General for Agriculture and Rural Development has suggested that Bulgaria is set to lose more EU money for agriculture in the country.

According to the findings of the DG the exchange of data between Ministry of Agriculture and Payment Agency is poor and the latter cannot guarantee that it uses the latest exact version of the system for identification of arable land in order to process the applications.

 

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