Bulgaria May Lose EUR 1.2 B in EU Funding by End-Year

Politics » BULGARIA IN EU | October 1, 2014, Wednesday // 09:24
Bulgaria: Bulgaria May Lose EUR 1.2 B in EU Funding by End-Year

Bulgaria should absorb EUR 1.2 B euro in EU funding by the end of the year or stands to lose the money, official figures have shown.

Under an optimistic scenario of the managing authorities of the EU funding programmes, however, Bulgaria is going to lose EUR 190.4 M by the end of 2014, according to data on Bulgaria’s performance in absorption of funding under EU’s operational programmes and rural development programmes.

The figures had been provided by the office of Deputy Prime Minister Iliana Tsanova who is in charge of EU funds absorption, news outlet BGNES reported on Tuesday.

According to the same optimistic scenario, most losses are expected to result from the temporarily suspended funding under Operational Programme Environment (EUR 82 M). A further EUR 80 M is going to be lost from unabsorbed funding under rural regions development programmes.

Losses under Operational Programme Regional Development, in which the European Commission has partly frozen funding, are expected to amount to EUR 18 M.

The lack of elected certifying authority for the Rural Development programme has prevented absorption of funding under that programme, BGNES noted.

The challenge of absorbing EUR 1.2 B in the last quarter of the year is rather serious, though, considering that only spending of EUR 103.8 M in EU funding had been certified since the start of the caretaker cabinet’s tenure on 6 August until 25 September.

Caretaker Deputy Prime Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva on Tuesday admitted that the European Commission would not resume suspended payments under operational programmes Environment and  Regional Development by the end of 2014.

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Tags: Bulgaria, EU funding, absorption, regional development, environment, European Commission, rural development

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