Mladen Mladenov, Executive Director of the Association of Business Clusters (ABC), has said that a total of 261 clusters have been registered in Bulgaria so far.

Mladenov, as cited by the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency, made clear at a meeting of the ABC in Vidin that Sofia had the largest number of clusters, 150, adding that there were also ones registered in Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas, and Ruse.

He informed that the ABC had drafted an analysis of the condition of clusters in Bulgaria.

Mladenov noted that many clusters had been established to group interests revolving around receiving assistance, including Bulgarian and European resources, instead of creating conditions for increasing the competitiveness of the Bulgarian economy.

He underscored that a clear dividing line had to be drawn between clusters related to the competitiveness of the economy and fictitiously created clusters.

“Technically speaking, businesses are free to associate as they see fit, but when it comes down to support from the state and the EU, then these associations have to match certain criteria,” Mladenov argued.

He reminded that the first clusters had been set up in 2003 under the PHARE pre-accession instrument, the second wave under the program had been in 2005-2008, and in the period 2010-2013, two sessions had been announced under the Competitiveness operational program.

Mladenov said that the formalization of the idea of clusterization had brought with it the first attempts at EU funds fraud schemes, adding that the ABC firmly opposed such illegal practices.

He also informed that the ABC had drafted a system for the accreditation of clusters in Bulgaria which was yet to be endorsed.

Mladenov explained that the system envisaged putting the existing clusters in Bulgaria into three groups, including newly created ones, developing ones, and developed ones.

He made clear that the idea was to introduce differentiated rates of financing for the different groups, the biggest weight being given to developing clusters, following Bulgaria’s Smart Specialization Strategy adopted in end-2014.

Mladenov also announced that the EU was creating a system for evaluating the efficiency of the business clusters, adding that it would affect their access to funding under operational programs.

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