Rumen Porozhanov, Executive Director of the State Fund Agriculture, has vowed that Bulgaria will not lose more EU funds under the Rural Development Program.

In a Wednesday interview for the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), as cited by mediapool.bg, Porozhanov reminded that the country had already lost EUR 90 M under the so-called n+2 rule, under which the sum allocated must be spent spent within 2 years of the allocation.

He informed that a positive letter from the EC had arrived, meaning that a positive decision for the reimbursement of funds for the last quarter of 2012 of EUR 280 M was expected.

Porozhanov said that the final decision of the EC on the matter was expected on April 19 or April 22.

The SFA head noted that 2013 was a very important year because it was the last year for contracting the total of EUR 3.4 B under the Rural Development Program.

He informed that a total of 79% of the funds under the program had already been contracted, meaning that some EUR 700 000 remained to be contracted by the deadline.

Porozhanov assured that all funds would be contracted and Bulgaria would not lose any EU funds in 2013 and 2014.

He noted that projects worth BGN 90 M would be contracted by end-2013 under measure 311 "Diversification into non-agricultural activities", of which BGN 10 M would be over-contracted.

He added that contracts worth an extra BGN 50 M would be signed under measure 312, „Support for establishing and development of micro enterprises."

Porozhanov reminded that one week ago the EC had fully reimbursed payments worth BGN 825 M which Bulgaria had made under the European Agricultural Guarantee Fund (EAGF), adding that the sum had already entered the fiscal budget.

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