Bulgaria is facing no threat of having to pay back 637 million euro in advance payments under the EU’s operational programmes because of the recent rejection of conformity assessments, European Commission spokesperson Dennis Abbott said on August 27 2009.

The country has complied with both requirements of submitting the assessments within the deadline and filing applications for the interim payments that represent 80 per cent of the programmes’ total cash pot.

However, money will not start flowing before Sofia authorities tackle the issue with the Management and Monitoring Information System and Brussels approved the updated operational programme reports, Abbott said.

The Commissions dismissed claims that Bulgaria might have to return unabsorbed financing in 2010 when the member states review the EU budget.

Abbott said that the country would be able to sign agreements on the total 6.9 billion euro it is entitled to by 2013 but funding that is not negotiated after that date will have to be given back to the EU budget.

Martin Dimitrov, leader of the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF), called on the finance ministry to audit all operational programmes before the Commission’s European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) has discovered any fraud.

Dimitrov said the findings should be published and sent to the European Commission.

In June 2009, the ministry said that the government’s EU funding audit agency has been probing into the programmes. More than 4.2 million leva has been spent on audits on all EU-funded programmes between January 1 2007 and June 2009.

Source: Dnevnik.bg