Bulgaria’s State Agency for National Security (SANS) considered the European Anti-Fraud Office (Olaf) its main partner in "protecting national and European financial interests", SANS said in a media statement after its chief Petko Sertov met Olaf director-general Franz-Hermann Brüner.

Bruner is in Sofia for a two-day visit at the invitation of Deputy Prime Minister for European Union Funds Meglena Plougchieva. On August 21 2008, Bruner met Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev, Plougchieva, Justice Minister Miglena Tacheva and Interior Minister Mihail Mikov.

Brüner and Sertov had discussed possibilities for joint prevention of malfeasance involving European Union money, the statement read. SANS said it was ready to exchange information in "a transparent way", as well as lend logistic and technical help to Olaf’s investigations in the country.

Earlier in the day, Brüner met Bulgaria’s Prosecutor-General Boris Velchev to discuss structural problems in the work of Bulgaria's prosecution, Focus news agency said.

Brüner was quoted as saying that tangible steps for the improvement of investigative bodies were discussed. The results of the meeting were very positive, he said.

Velchev said that they had “discussed structural changes in the work of the prosecution, as well as the need of centralisation of the Olaf cases.”

“It is obvious that if we had had difficulties in the communication with Olaf it was our fault,” Velchev said. “I think that in the last months we found the correct way of communication and we strive to improve it […] Part of the changes could be informing Olaf on the various trials and using their help more often.”

According to Focus, Velchev and Brüner discussed particular malfeasance cases, such as the one involving what Olaf has called the Nikolov-Stoikov criminal group, but not in details.

A report by Olaf, leaked to the media in July, claimed that there was a “criminal network made up of more than 50 Bulgarian, European and offshore companies, controlled and/or financed by [Bulgarian businessmen] Mario Nikolov and Lyudmil Stoykov, suspected of having close ties to the current Government”.

Brüner’s meeting with Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski was defined as “constructive” by the Olaf head, Focus reported. Brüner and Oresharski had discussed prevention of problems, which had already occurred in the past and the measures already taken. Brüner told journalists that it could not be expected that everything became perfect all of a sudden, but said that steps in the right direction had been made. The steps Bulgaria should undertake were better control on EU funds utilisation, better training and and better risk evaluation.

Oresharski, in turn, was the latest Bulgarian official to announce that he had discussed with Brüner improvement of communication with Olaf. Olaf experts had trained more than 1300 employees of the Finance Ministry in detecting EU funds malfeasances, Oresharski said.

“After all, Olaf is our institution too, as a member of the EU. We did not discuss any matter in details. We mainly focused on clarifying once again the communication between Olaf, the Finance Ministry and the entire state administration,” the minister was quoted as saying. He also added that there were no major specific remarks against Bulgaria and that the country was not among the countries where the major frauds were revealed.

Brüner also visited the presidency. According to the preliminary schedule, he was to meet the chief secretary of the presidential administration Krassimir Stoyanov. No statements for media were made.