Bulgaria had a plan to cope with the halted funding under three measures of the Sapard pre-accession aid programme, Deputy Prime Minister for EU funds Meglen Plougchieva told private broadcaster bTV. “This plan has three parts: examination of all projects, which received funding between June 26 2006 and June 26 2008; the second part is related to the project that are funded or are to be funded but are not reported to the European Commission […] there is a third part of measures to meet the requirement for strengthening and improvement of control,” she said.

Provosts and university managers commented on the row over enrolling in universities without passing the admission exams in the morning talk show of Nova TV. The private broadcaster revealed that a student could be enrolled in any university if paying 5000 to 25 000 leva to a certain company.

“That cannot happen,” a representative of Sofia St Kliment Ohridski University said.

University of National and World Economy provost Borislav Borissov agreed and asked “why are the universities involved in this?” Counterfeit diplomas were being printed in illegal print houses,  “but what do universities have to do with that?”

New Bulgarian University provost Sergei Ignatov said that the fake diplomas were different from the real ones, issued by the universities. “These are not our diplomas,” he said. “There is always something that distinguishes our diplomas from those printed in illegal print houses,” he said.