Bulgaria 23rd in EU by EU Funds Absorption

Bulgaria remains 23rd among the 28 EU Member States by EU funds absorption, according statistics of the Directorate-General for Regional and Urban Policy of the European Commission.

Bulgaria was given the green light by Brussels for 76.3% of the EU funds granted.

At the same time, Romania, which joined the EU together with Bulgaria on January 1, 2007, reported an EU funds absorption rate of 61.4%, landing at place 27.

However, Romania had access to a larger amount of EU funding in the past programming period due to its larger territory and population, according to Bulgaria’s BGNES news agency.

In the 2007-2013 programming period, Romania had access to EU funding totaling EUR 19.7 B, while Bulgaria had access to less than EUR 7 B under the EU’s Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund.

Estonia tops the ranking with an absorption rate of 94.9%, followed by Portugal with 94.3% and Lithuania with 93.7%.

Bulgaria’s government hopes to boost the absorption rate by 85% by end-2015, when the projects for the 2007-2013 programming period must be wrapped up.

Over the next few weeks Bulgaria expects to be given the green light for the last two operational programs of the 2014-2020 programming period, namely operational program Environment and operational program Regions in Growth.

By 2022 Bulgaria will have access to nearly EUR 16 B.