Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Bulgaria are intensely disillusioned and even apathetic about applying for European Union funding, Mira Yanova, head of MBMD polling agency told The Sofia Echo on August 6. The previous day, she presented the findings of a survey conducted by MBMD in April and May this year among 1202 representatives of SMEs, the media, municipalities and NGO sector. The survey, ordered by the Finance Ministry, evaluated the readiness of Bulgarians to apply for EU financing.
“Of all the target groups, it is the SMEs that show the least interest in applying for EU funds,” Yanoca said, which is a big problem because they are one of the prime targets of EU funds in the first place. “The reason for this is the lack of trust they have in the way EU funds have been allocated in Bulgaria,” Yanova said. “Because of this mistrust, they deprive themselves of millions of euro in funding,” she noted. Forty-six per cent of the SMEs interviewed have never even looked for information on how to apply for EU structural and cohesion funds. Eight per cent have looked but were unable to find information, with a mere 45 per cent succeeding.
When talking about SMEs in Bulgaria, one should not exclude the possibility that most are small firms and other, similar sized enterprises. “Size does not matter,” Yanova said. “This funding is aimed at them, not at the bigger companies who have other means to finance their work such as banking institutions.”
A bigger share of the problem, she says, is the lack of success stories about SMEs receiving EU funding. Or, at least, these stories have not been made public.
“What people read and watch on TV is continuous reports about abuse of EU funds,” she said.
The latest proof of that was the publicity surrounding the June 23 European Commission’s interim report on Bulgaria, which froze about 800 million euro in funding because of the EC’s doubts over the country’s ability to fight corruption.
The MBMD survey was conducted before the release of the report, “and if you ask me, if we did the survey now, because of the report, the situation would have been made worse. I think the report made an extremely negative impact on SMEs.”
“This is what needs to be changed for SMEs to get out of their corners and start exercising their rights,” she said. “Usually, authorities rely on information campaigns to make people and companies more aware and active. It is a good solution but most information campaigns are insufficiently imaginative. We usually see TV spots showing farmers and their gardens, which to me, look like scenes from communist times. What people need is detailed and accurate information about where and how to apply, not general information.” Yanova has had personal experience of filling in forms on one of EU’s programmes. “As part of a small NGO I had to fill in a form and let me tell you, it was not easy.”
Besides the findings of the SMEs, the MBMD survey showed encouraging data on NGOs and municipalities. They have proved to be extremely active in searching and finding information on EU funds and applying for it. “Of course, unlike SMEs, municipalities are part of the state machine and therefore can exploit all its advantages. The same applies to NGOs. Most of them are found by people who, in one way or another, have some experience in applying for funds, whereas the SMEs are being left on their own. This, according to the survey, has obviously had a negative impact on them.
Besides the issue with the SMEs, the MBMD survey targeted public opinion on the issue of EU funding. Here, things did not look any brighter. Eighty-one per cent of respondents said that they have never looked for any type of EU funding information. Much to the dislike of Mira Yanova, these results made the headlines of several Bulgarian-language-newspapers and news sites. “After we published the survey’s results, headlines such as ‘Bulgarians don’t care about EU funds’ were sprawled across newspapers, which is totally wrong. EU funds as a rule are aimed at businesses, not at individuals. You cannot expect everyone to know and have detailed information about them. But this extreme attitude is something that Bulgarian media like,” she said. As for why public opinion had such negative attitudes towards EU financing, Yanova again pointed out the relation to the SMEs. “People should know that the success of SMEs funding means success for entire society,” she said. “Furthermore, people should actually know what EU funds are, who their targets are and why the system of allocating them works that way. Then and only then will people have a more positive view towards EU funds.”
MBMD’s experience has shown exactly that. More information means a better attitude on these issues. The polling agency has conducted a total of four surveys, the first completed on March 2007, on the information people get on EU financing. Since then, the results have been improving as a whole. Unfortunately, this again applies more for the NGOs and municipalities rather the SMEs. “Both NGO’s and municipalities are feeling more prepared to apply for funding than ever before. In March 2007, 64 per cent of NGOs said they had efficient knowledge of how to apply for funds, while in May 2008 this rate had gone up to 71 per cent. It is the same with municipalities whose rate increased from 70 per cent to 77 per cent. The survey also proves that the internet era has come to Bulgaria and that receiving information via email was the preferred choice of journalists, NGO’s forming the next largest share, followed by municipalities. The SMEs were again at the bottom of the table with just 50 per cent of them asking for information via e-mail. The sum of people who said they did not want to receive information on the issue at all was again the largest one in the SME’s answers.
