Bulgaria's opposition parties stated once again the government should resign after the European Commission strongly criticized the country over corruption and mismanagement of the EU funds in its report, released on Wednesday.

"The EC sanctioned our country by depriving two government agencies of the right to allocate money on EU funds as well as freezing the financing on the structural, pre-accession and Cohesion funds due to the fact that Bulgaria did not kept the rules," said the leader of the right-wing Democrats for Strong Bulgaria party Ivan Kostov.

"A new government could change the situation and bring that money back," he added.

"Today the EC told the Bulgarians they did not manage to become real European citizens even 18 months after the country's accession to the EU," commented Nikolay Svinarov, chairman of Bulgarian New Democracy party.

Olimpi Katev, the first representative of the three-way ruling coalition, who commented on the EC reports, said the political responsibility over the harsh criticism should be brought by the whole government.

"Some ministers could resign as that matter will be discussed during the upcoming Coalition Council sitting to be held during the weekend in the resort town of Bansko," he explained.

As expected, the European Commission confirmed that the Central PHARE Finance and Contracts Unit at the Ministry of Finance and the PHARE Executive Agency at the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works would be stripped of their accreditation to allocate program funding.

This will block effectively over EUR 600 M of PHARE funds, as well as additional money under the ISPA Program.

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