Bulgarian Minister: EU Funds Applications Inspected

Bulgaria's EU Funds Minister Tomislav Donchev says the state should take adequate measures to counteract offenses in EU funds application procedures. Photo by BGNES

Over a hundred of Bulgarian projects that have applied for EU funding are being currently inspected, said Bulgaria's EU Funds Minister Tomislav Donchev.

“I'd say we are talking about a three-digit number,” said Saturday Minister Donchev for BNR, adding that “this is a normal procedure for the Union. Each of the member-states, regardless of its record and the fact whether previous a offenses have been revealed, is prone to inspection by the EU. So we should not worry about the ongoing inspections. What we should worry about is how the state reacts to them – what it does about the offenses that have been brought into the open.”

According to Minister Donchev, Bulgaria's regulatory bodies are doing a good job, yet there is a need for civil control of the EU funds application procedures.

Bulgaria’s government is supposed to adopt new regulations on the projects seeking EU funding in order to accelerate the bureaucratic procedure.

Bulgarian EU Funds Minister Tomislav Donchev announced Friday upon his return from meetings with representatives of the EC in Brussels that the deadline for approval or rejection of a project applying for EU money before the Bulgarian authorities will be reduced to 2.5 months, and that the prospective beneficiaries will be granted one week to rectify any problems with their applications identified by the respective agency.

By the end of May 2010, Bulgaria’s Finance Ministry will have to decide whether it can afford to increase to 35% the advance payments for municipalities for investment projects receiving EU funding. Currently, the advance payments vary between 10% and 30%.

Donchev pointed out Friday that the absorption of EU funding in Bulgaria has started to speed up as the rate of negotiating funds for new projects has increased 1.5 times since the beginning of 2010, year-on-year.

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