Sofia could miss out on 115 million leva worth of funding from the EU because of slow progress in preparing the ground for a water infrastructure project financed by the bloc's ISPA programme, environment minister Djevdet Chakurov said on February 14 2008, as quoted by Dnevnik daily.

Sofia's city hall has been slow in buying out the lands where the facilities were due to be built, Chakurov told reporters after meeting with mayor Boiko Borissov.

The delay in renegotiating the contract with water infrastructure concessionaire Sofiiska Voda was another obstacle in the way of the project to build four wastewater collection and treatment facilities.The ministry was on schedule with its own commitments to carry out the project and the city hall was to blame for the delays, the minister added.

The deadline for completing the project was 2010 and to speed up proceeding, a new round of talks between the ministry, the city hall, Sofiiska Voda and European Commission representatives would be held on February 26, mediapool.bg said.

Sofia authorities have countered Chakurov's criticism on the same day, with the city's chief architect Petar Dikov saying that Borissov and the city hall had the issue under control.