Bulgaria expects to utilise 20 per cent of the EU funds in the period from 2007 to 2009, Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said on Friday, August 11.

Dnevnik newspaper reported that according to Stanishev Bulgaria was going to have problems with fund utilisation. The country lacked administrative capacity and private project applying for funding were below the needed level, Stanishev said.

State administration salaries were insufficient to attract experts, Stanishev said. Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski supported his views.

By the end of the year 1000 civil servants would undergo training for work with the EU structural funds, Oresharski said. Administrators, working for the utilisation of the EU finds, would receive some bonuses, said he.

In the two-year period after Bulgaria’s expected EU entry, the country would receive 4.6 billion euro from the union funds, distributed in four sectors. Among these are agriculture, domestic policies and administration.