The Ministry of Interior will announce a new public procurement procedure for upgrading the TETRA border control communication system, announced the interim Deputy Prime Minister for EU funds management Atanas Pekanov.

This is the last project Bulgaria has to complete before receiving the first tranche of funds from the EU's Post-Covid Recovery and Resilience Plan, which is already calculated in the 2022 budget.

There were no interested parties in the first tender and the government of Kiril Petkov submitted the project directly to the company "IT Service", a public institution's partner in various major IT projects. This decision was considered an infringement by the European Commission.

The TETRA system is an internal system of the Ministry of the Interior and the aim is to connect the Ministry of Defence to it as well. The terms of the tender will be modified to make it more attractive to potential bidders.

By the end of August, Bulgaria will send its first request for allocation of Recovery and Resilience Plan funds and expects to receive them within two months.