Sofia expects that the May 16 report of the European Commission will not include a red flag in the sector of agriculture.

Minister Nihat Kabil believed that the country has achieved a lot - and it will be checked out in the key document - since October last year when farming was among the harshly criticized areas of pre-accession reforms.

The agriculture minister ruled out any possibility of misusing funds under the EU's SAPARD program, as it has been recently reported by local media.

Kabil explained there were 21 cases of attempted frauds with such funds, but none of those was successful.

Last week the Interior Ministry announced it has uncovered fund drainage schemes, involving significant amounts of EU funds allotted under the bloc's pre-accession programs.

Investments on the approved SAPARD projects in Bulgaria exceed BGN 1 M (EUR 500,000), the agriculture ministry has announced.

Once the country joins the Union, hopefully on 1 January 2007, it will no longer be eligible for SAPARD, but will be given access to other financially supportive schemes of the EU.

The seventh agreement on the SAPARD program signed between Bulgaria and the European Commission last November increased the EU financial responsibility towards the country to slightly over EUR 68 M.

Bulgaria works on SAPARD projects since the middle of 2001. Once the country joins the Union, hopefully on 1 January 2007, it will no longer be eligible for SAPARD, but will be given access to other financially supportive schemes of the EU.

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