EU's Director-General for Enlargement Michael Leigh assessed positively Monday the efforts of the Bulgarian government to tackle the country's problems with the absorption of EU money.

Leigh pointed out he was satisfied with the work of the Prime Minister Stanishev, the Deputy PM Plugchieva, and the national coordinator Dimitar Ivanovski. He said the European Commission had taken notice of the government's efforts for stricter control of the absorption of pre-accession funds.

Leigh arrived to Sofia at his own initiative in order to inform the Deputy PM Plugchieva about the details of the Commission's decision to deprive Bulgaria of EUR 560 M of PHARE program funds over graft suspicions.

After his meeting with Plugchieva, the Enlargement Director announced a technical mission of the EC was going to assess Bulgaria's progress in January 2009. The assessment will refer to the absorption of pre-accession funds in the fields of education, social security, and justice.

The further joint actions to be taken by Bulgaria and the Commission in 2009 would be based on the technical report in January.

Michael Leigh explicitly stated that the EC had noted the progress in Bulgaria's Central Finance and Contracts Unit at the Ministry of Finance, which is in charge of distributing funds from the pre-accession programs.

The Unit's Director Ivanovski and the Deputy PM Plugchieva were explicitly praised for their contribution to the positive developments. In Leigh's words, the Commission now expected to see the results of the staff and structure changes.

Leigh expressed his hope that a number of projects that had been frozen in 2008, would be re-launched in 2009, and that all irregularities in Bulgaria's EU funds absorption would be tackled properly.

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