A new task force will use European Union funds to fight embezzlement, Margarita Popova, spokesperson of the Prosecutor-General's Office, was quoted as saying by Bulgarian news agency BTA on October 3 2008.
The unit will consist of representatives from the Sofia branch of the Prosecutor-General's Office, the National Investigative Service and the police, she said.
It will concentrate solely on cases of corruption and embezzlement of EU funds, something that was
a subject of harsh criticism in the European Commissions' interim reports on Bulgaria's progress in fighting organised crime and corruption.
Priority will be given to abuse of financing under the Phare, ISPA and Leonardo da Vinci programmes. The Sapard Programme will be another priority, with cases subject to investigation being subdivided into three groups: pending cases, cases instituted on alerts from the European Anti-Fraud Office (Olaf) and cases instituted on alerts from Bulgarian control authorities, Popova said.
A number of scandals this year concerning conflicts of interest of public officials in charge of handling EU funds have led to the EC freezing about 800 million euro in funding to Bulgaria.
