European Commission's Directorate-General for Agriculture and Rural Development chief Jean-Luc Demarty has asked Bulgaria to freeze funding under the European Union's rural aid pre-accession programme SAPARD, Bulgaria's Ministry of Agriculture and Food Supply said on March 7.

The news was confirmed by Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski, who said that the amount exceeded 100 million euro. Agriculture deputy minister Dimitur Peichev, however, said the sum was between 50 million and 140 million euro.

Demarty said the reason of this request was the external investigation on suspicions about irregularities and suspected fraud involving SAPARD funding, launched by the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) in 2006.

Oresharski refused to elaborate on the issue pressed by reporters after question time in Parliament, but member of European Parliament (MEP) Petya Stavreva has already asked OLAF for more details on the investigation, Dnevnik daily reported.

Last year, OLAF found one case in which 7.5 million euro of SAPARD funds were defrauded by a company linked to local businessman Lyudmil Stoikov, who had helped bankroll President Georgi Purvanov's re-election campaign, but a Bulgarian court found all defendants in the case not guilty.