EC Fines Bulgaria EUR 20 M for Wrongly Paid Farm Subsidies

The European Commission has fined Bulgaria over EUR 20 M for wrongly paid direct subsidy payments to farmers in 2007, the Agriculture Minister, Miroslav Naydenov, announced Thursday.

The EUR 20,2 M sanction was first warned of by Nadezhda Sandolova, the Bulgarian representative in the European Court of Auditors, in October 2009 as the European Audit Office had found major irregularities and deficiencies in the control systems in the State Fund ‘Agriculture’.

The EC findings regarding the ineffectiveness of the Bulgarian administration and control of IACS payments appear in the report of the European Court of Auditors in 2008. The Audit Office of the European Commission noted significant weaknesses in the functioning of the IACS system in the State Fund ‘Agriculture’ and, in particular the identification of agricultural land and checks as to which land should have received direct payments.

The European Court of Auditors inspected 34 Bulgarian plots in 2007, which received IACS subsidies and found that 12 of them were uncultivated land covered with shrubs and trees.

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