ISPA to Unblock EU Money for Bulgaria in May

In Rasmussen words, the money must be spend until 2010, and not as planed until 2013. Photo by BGNES

The Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession (ISPA) is to unblock EU funds for the Bulgarian States Infrastructure Agency in May.

This was announced Thursday by the Deputy Head of the unit responsible for Bulgaria in Directorate General for Regional Policy of the European Commission, Karsten Rasmussen, during the fourth meeting of the Observing Committee of Operational Program "Regional Development 2007 - 2013" (OPRD).

The sum will be reduced by EUR 1 M, which is a minor punishment as the total amount is EUR 115 M, Rasmussen said. In his words, the money must be spent before 2010, and not as planned before 2013.

The EU funds were blocked in July 2009 after the former Infrastructure Agency's head, Veselin Georgiev, was charged with awarding contracts worth tens of millions of BGN to companies run by two of his brothers.

The controversy that led to the freezing of the EUR 723 M earmarked to improve Bulgaria's dilapidated roads broke out following an investigation by the newspaper Kapital. Georgiev resigned from his post under pressure from the media.