EC to unblock Bulgaria’s Sapard funds

   The European Commission is to unblock about 140 million euro in funding for Bulgaria

under the bloc’s Sapard pre-accession agricultural and rural development assistance programme,

media reports from Brussels said.
 
Statements about the unblocking of the funds emerged on September 7 2009, while Agriculture Minister Miroslav Naidenov was in Brussels for a meeting of EU agriculture and fisheries ministers, and met European Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel. 

The commissioner's office confirmed that the requirements had been met by Bulgaria for the funds to be unblocked. A formal decision would be made by the EC during a September 9 and 10 2009 visit to Brussels by Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov. He will lead a high-level delegation for talks with European Commission President Jose Barroso.

Dnevnik said that up to December 31 this year, Bulgaria could submit requests for payment of up to 90.6 million euro in Sapard funding.

A further 19 million euro would become available after Bulgaria's council for the absorption of EU funds puts in place an action plan for Sapard.

Bulgarian news agency Focus said there would be a "strong and effective co-ordination mechanism for the EU money secured through the establishment of a secretariat with the EU Funds Management Council.

"In this way we will provide a mechanism, which will avoid duplicating the functions", Juliana Nikolova, who is in charge of the EU funds, said.

Bulgaria's Government will aim at providing continuity in the management of the policies and programmes of EU funds.

There will not be drastic changes to the management bodies of the operational programmes and there will not be any political appointments in the structures of the administration.

Much effort will be put into training of the administration managing EU funds, Focus said.

Dnevnik said on September 7 that the EC could announce a decision to unblock funding during Prime Minister Boiko Borissov’s September 9 and 10 visit.
 
Meglena Plougchieva, who was deputy prime minister in charge of EU funding absorption in the now-defunct Stanishev cabinet, said on September 4 that she expected the decision to be made this week.
 
Speaking to Dnevnik, foreign minister Roumyana Zheleva said the news coming from Brussels was positive.
 
Zheleva said that the new government dominated by Borissov’s right-of-centre party GERB, which swept into power after a landslide at the July 5 2009 elections, had sent out an important political signal that it would uphold European standards.
 
Following a string of irregularities detected in 2008 by the EU’s anti-fraud office Olaf, the EC pulled the plug on 140 million euro. Various estimates put the amount Bulgaria could win back at between 72 million and 75 million euro.
 
In the first few days after winning the elections, Borissov said that the EC had assured him that it would unfreeze funds to Bulgaria under the EU’s Sapard agricultural aid programme. This was going to happen as a sign of goodwill to the new Government, he said.
 
Soon after that, Borissov was contradicted by Michael Mann, spokesperson for Boel.
 
On July 10, Mann said that nothing of the sort had been promised, and money would be unfrozen only after Bulgaria had dealt with the problems facing it.
 
As a result, on July 28 the EC sent a mission of experts to check on the State Agriculture Fund which manages Sapard funds. The mission ended before August 31 and was expected to have the final say on whether the fund could manage the EU money in a transparent way.

    Source: sofiaecho.com