Bulgaria is preparing to spend its best efforts to achieve a proper and highly beneficial use of European Union funding after the country joins the EU.
The country would use the EU funds to enhance its competitiveness over the period 2007-2013 more effectively than the 10 countries that joined the union in 2004 and also prevent corruption in the process, Andrei Lalov told a news conference on March 22. Lalov is head of the national working group to develop the action programme for Bulgarian economic competitiveness through EU structural funds between 2007 and 2013.
“I believe that we have the opportunity to learn much from the mistakes of the EU newcomers and that the use of EU funds in Bulgaria will be much better,” he said.
In his words, the action programme amounts to a little over one billion euro, while Bulgaria, which hopes to join EU in 2007, will have access to six billion euro in structural funds for the period 2007-2015.
Unlike the new EU member states, which implemented such programmes for only two years with utilisation rates as low as about 30 per cent, Bulgaria would implement a seven-year plan with significantly higher utilisation, Lalov said.
Some of the projects that Bulgaria financed from the EU pre-accession PHARE programme reached funds utilisation of almost 90 per cent, he said.
“The problem with PHARE was that we had too little money for too many problems. Now, my concern is that we will have sufficient funding, but not enough quality projects,” Lalov said.
Under the programme, using plans he and the working group have prepared, eight government institutions will work to enhance Bulgaria’s competitiveness in a number of areas, including transport, environment, human resources, regional co-operation, farming and administrative capacity.
The programme will focus on five priority areas - development of a knowledge economy, cost efficiency of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), guaranteed funds for SMEs, business environment and international markets.
Cost efficiency will include technological upgrades and modernisation, energy efficiency projects and quality standards and will take about 50 per cent of the total financing.
Application criteria will be publicised as soon as January 2007.
The maximum aid to a single company will be 100 000 euro over three years, except for farming, regional co-operation and scientific research projects.
The programme will also require co-financing of up to 50 per cent of a given project’s cost to be covered by the applicant SME.
On March 24, a meeting of mayors discussed the future use of EU funds by municipalities.
The meeting was held at the initiative of Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov and was attended by mayors of large and small cities including Dimitrovgrad, Kavarna, Kyustendil, Pazardjik, Pleven, Plovdiv, Pravets, Shoumen, Sliven, Radomir, Veliko Turnovo and Vidin.
One of the main tasks of the mayors was to prepare the cities for financial decentralisation, a main requirement of the EU, Borissov said.
The participants agreed to use a common office in Brussels to reduce costs.
“This will show the EU that we have strong united local authorities who want to meet the criteria for EU membership. To use European funds we have to be ready by September with particular projects and to ensure co-funding possibilities,” Borissov said.
According to the mayors, such co-funding could be carried out by the state or secured after the financial decentralisation of the municipalities.
“All municipalities have prepared their development plans and the indicative tables to them, but with the budgets we have now, we cannot implement them and Bulgaria would not able to implement even 20 per cent of the allocated funds,” said Plovdiv mayor Ivan Chomakov.
In his view, the financial decentralisation of the municipalities has to be included in the constitution with the amendments that are currently being adopted, “otherwise between 50 and 60 acts have to be amended and there are only 10 months until 2007”.
