By Vesselin Zhelev

waz.euobserver.com

Bulgaria is hoping to tap into the World Bank's financial expertise in order to speed up the absorption of EUR 7 B of European funding. The money is aimed at modernising the country's infrastructure, lifting its environmental and living standards, and making it more competitive.

But the European Commission has reservations about the roles of bodies involved in the proposed partnership.

Three years after its accession to the EU, Bulgaria has only used a tiny portion of the money set aside for structural development. Work has been delayed by weak control and accounting systems, ongoing fraud and corruption investigations, as well as poor administrative capacity.

The government in Sofia fears that the delay may result in the loss of cash it badly needs to cope with the economic crisis and may lead to a reduction of funds allocated to Bulgaria in the next EU budgetary planning period from 2014 to 2020.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has appointed a special minister in charge of EU financial aid, Tomislav Donchev, under whose tutelage Bulgaria signed a framework co-operation agreement with the World Bank in August.

"There are two options: to either use purely consultative, technical aid from the World Bank or to directly involve it in the preparation and implementation of projects," said Mr Donchev.

Mr Borisov has already picked two former World Bank officials for important political jobs. Kristalina Georgieva, the Bank's vice-president, is now Bulgaria's EU commissioner and Simeon Djankov, a World Bank economist, was appointed Mr Borisov's finance minister.

"We are not against the World Bank or other international financial institutions providing technical aid or helping build administrative capacity," said Ton van Lierop, a spokesperson for European regional policy commissioner Johannes Hahn. "What we don't want is duplication of functions."

But Rossen Plevneliev, Bulgaria's regional development minister, said his country and the European Commission diverged on a wider range of issues as far as the Bank is concerned. He said Brussels wants clarification on how the Bank will be paid for its services, how it will be audited and what projects it would take charge of.

Mr Plevneliev said that these matters must be sorted out in working meetings with the commission.

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