Deputy Finance Minister: Less than 10% of Bulgaria's EU Money Are Blocked

Politics » BULGARIA IN EU | June 28, 2008, Saturday // 00:00
Deputy Finance Minister: Less than 10% of Bulgaria??™s EU Money Are Blocked: Deputy Finance Minister: Less than 10% of Bulgaria's EU Money Are Blocked Bulgaria's Deputy Minister of Finance explained Saturday that less than 10% of the Bulgaria's funding by the preaccession programs had been frozen. Photo by Yuliana Nikolova (Sofia Photo Agency)

The Deputy Minister of Finance Dimitar Ivanovski said Saturday in an interview for the Bulgarian private Darik Radio that less than 10% of Bulgaria's total EU funding by the three pre-accession programs PHARE, SAPARD, and ISPA had been blocked with the recent freezing of funds for certain measures.

According to Ivanovski, the letter from the European Commission to the Bulgarian Agriculture Ministry recommended freezing of the funds for two additional measures meant the blocking of BGN 183 M.

This would cause the stopping of 571 SAPARD-funded projects. Thus, a total of about EUR 250 M have been frozen so far, which was less than 10% of the EUR 3 B, which Bulgaria was supposed to received by the pre-accession programs, including EUR 1 B by PHARE, EUR 600 M by SAPARD, and EUR 1,5 B by ISPA.

"Compared to other member states of the EU on this criteria, Bulgaria is not an exception", Ivanovski said.

With respect to the BGN 183 M of SAPARD funds frozen with the Commission's last letter, the Deputy Finance Minister explained that the decision had been made after the mission of OLAF and Agriculture Directorate-General experts, who audited the Bulgarian Executive Agency on SAPARD.

Ivanovski pointed out that the frozen funds were for projects negotiated before 2007. He added the recent audits reminded of the cases in March when OLAF inspectors found Bulgarian firms receiving money for new machinery, and presenting second-hand machines as new.

The Deputy Minister of Finance summed up that the SAPARD funds had been blocked for three measures so far: investments in agricultural production, development and diversification of economic activities, improvement of processing and marketing of agricultural and sea products.

He explained the mechanism of payments by the SAPARD program - the approved projects for funding by the SAPARD Agency were sent to the National Fund of the Ministry of Finance, which audited the documentation, and then transferred the funds to the SAPARD Agency. The Agency paid the money to the beneficiaries, and then within three months, Brussels reimbursed the Ministry of Finance.

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