From 2007 until April 2014 Bulgaria has received from Brussels subsidies worth EUR 6.850 billion out of all EUR 9.370 allotted to this country. Is this sum enough? Let us first note that each country pays membership dues for being part of the EU. The annual sum paid by Bulgaria to the EU amounts to nearly EUR 400 million. In other words, it paid some EUR 2.4 billion during the six years of the 2007-2013 programming period. Therefore, Bulgaria has received a net sum worth EUR 4.450 billion.

After the country’s accession to the European Union the sum of EUR 6,674 billion was allotted to Bulgaria by two main funds: the Structural and the Cohesion funds. The money was distributed in seven different operational programmes. Each of the programmes intended to assist the development of a given social and economic sphere that needed to reform and draw closer to the level reached by other EU member states. For example, the Transport Operational Programme envisaged subsidies worth EUR 1.624 billion allotted to Bulgaria, the Competitiveness OP allotted nearly EUR 1 billion, etc. Along with these seven operational programmes, Bulgaria had the chance to use financing under the Rural Development Programme and the European Fisheries Fund to the total sum of EUR 2.7 billion. Bulgaria managed to absorb European money under these two funds amounting to just over EUR 2 billion from January 1, 2007 until now.

A reference of the Bulgarian government shows that so far Bulgaria has managed to absorb EUR 6,850 billion, or 73% of all European funds allotted to the country in the former programming period. It means that the Bulgarian authorities have been  functioning well over these years, but sometimes they failed to provide convincing projects to the European Commission. A careful and detailed analysis shows that Bulgaria has failed to absorb some EUR 500 million under the Transport Operational Programme. The country has absorbed only half of the money under the Environment OP. Apparently this was due to the lack of experience and administrative capacity.

However, it is very encouraging that Bulgarian institutions have acquired bigger experience and competence over the past months. As a result, the amount of money reimbursed by the European Commission has increased. On March 31, 2013 the certified expenditures amounted to 34.5% and one year later this percentage reached 53.6%. The progress was noted by the EC itself which reminded that the country has three more years to absorb the European finances.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov