OLAF General Director Franz-Hermann Br??ner arrived in Sofia Thursday to meet with high ranking Bulgarian officials. Photo by OLAF
A delegation of the European Anti-Fraud Office OLAF, led by OLAF's General Director Franz-Hermann Bruner arrived in Sofia Thursday, according to OLAF's press center.
The official visit will last two days days while the delegation is going to meet with the Bulgarians Interior Minister Mihail Mikov, Justice Minister Meglena Tacheva, Bulgaria's Chief Prosecutor Boris Velchev, the Director of the State Agency for National Security (SANS) Petko Sertov, and Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski.
Since the Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov is attending the Olympic games in Beijing, Bruner is going to be received by the President's Chief Secretary, Krasimir Stoyanov.
Issues regarding organized crime, corruption and fraud are going to be discussed at those meetings.
Franz-Hermann Bruner has been invited to Sofia by Deputy Prime Minister Meglena Plugchieva.
In addition to Plugchieva, the OLAF Director met over a working lunch the Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev at the "Arena Di Serdica" hotel to discuss collaboration between institutions in Bulgaria and OLAF in the fight against misuse of European funds. Stanishev and Bruner are not going to make any statements for the media.
Bruner has said that OLAF's message for the Bulgarian authorities has been clear and what they expected now were results. The Director further wished to not give any statements during his two-day visit.
The visit comes in the aftermath of an OLAF report published in July 2008, and widely discussed by the media and the public in Bulgaria because it revealed scandalous violations in SAPARD funds absorption as well as political cover-ups.