Bulgaria was ready to utilise 800 million euro from EU funds for projects under the operational programme environment, Environment and Water Affairs Minister Djevdet Chakurov said at the official opening of the programme.

With a little bit of additional efforts and work on the details, Bulgaria could prepare projects worth 1.3 billion euro, Chacurov said as quoted by mediapool.bg.

The real start of the programme will be after January 16 2008 when the committee for monitoring the programme will meet to approve the criteria for the projects to be funded. Projects in three main fields, water supply, refuse depots and biodiversity will be evaluated.

Chacurov said that Bulgaria could utilise 1.8 billion euro under the operational programme. Some 70 per cent of the sum would be used for construction of purifying stations of waste water and water supply and sewerage.

According to the Chakurov, the construction of purifying stations at the seaside had become a priority after the property construction boom.

The Parliamentary Environment and Water Committee chairperson Georgi Bozhinov said that Bulgaria had been underestimated by the talks of low utilisation of EU funds in the new union members. “One returned lev, one un-utilised euro will be a failure for Bulgaria,” he said.