/ world today news/ Bulgaria is threatened by a record financial correction by the European Commission under the Program for the Development of Rural Areas (RDP).
According to information from several independent sources, a sanction of about 250 million euros can be imposed only on the municipal projects financed under the PRDP.
This is reported in Sega in tomorrow’s issue.
State fund “Agriculture” admitted that there is a risk, but only for 33 million euros. There is no clarity because an audit is currently underway. On Wednesday, a special operation of the National Tax Service began in the DFZ. There is no official information on what exactly is being checked. Warnings of major violations and impending colossal sanctions under the agricultural program for the expired program period, which had 2.6 billion euros from the EC, have caused a political storm and will likely lead to changes at the top of the fund.
As BGNES reported earlier today, the European Commission is expected to impose colossal sanctions on Bulgaria for spending European funds on the agricultural program. The exact amount is expected to become clear next week, when a delegation from the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and the State Fund for Agriculture is due to travel to Brussels.
The European Commission is expected to impose financial sanctions in the amount of hundreds of millions of euros for the money for the so-called “rural tourism”, which the DF “Agriculture” has repaid during the 2007-2013 program period. The sanctions are due to established violations and the purchase of luxury vehicles, ATVs, motorcycles and even vessels, which instead of tourism, were used for personal purposes from the beneficiaries. The correction that Brussels will impose on DF “Agriculture” will be covered at the expense of the state budget.
Bulgaria will also suffer serious sanctions because of investments in the field of renewable energy sources, which were also financed under the agricultural program.
Today, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications also announced that Minister Liliana Pavlova is on a working visit to Brussels. There, Pavlova met with the chairman of the Committee of the Regions, Markou Markula. Before him, she presented the policies and priorities of the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works. The topic of their conversation was the role of local authorities in the field of regional development and in the context of the implementation of the Operational Program “Regions in Growth” 2014-2020. With him, Pavlova discussed the support that the state provides to local authorities for the development of urban infrastructure, for increasing investments in their territory, as well as the progress of the National Program for Energy Efficiency of Multi-Family Residential Buildings, Pavlova’s department announced. She also held meetings with the Vice President of the European Commission, Kristalina Georgieva, as well as with the General Directors of the Regional and Urban Policy Directorate Walter Defaa and the Environment Directorate Daniel Kayeha.
According to the publication in Sega, the information about the imposition of a huge sanction under the PRDP for the old program period has been circulating for days. MPs from the opposition even claim that the sanctions can reach 500 million euros. On Wednesday, during the parliamentary blitz control with the deputy prime ministers, deputies from the left announced officially that they had information about an imposed financial correction in the amount of 250 million euros and asked the deputy prime minister Tomislav Donchev if this was true. Both Donchev and DF “Agriculture” refuse to confirm the amount. DF “Agriculture” admitted that there were claims to impose a sanction in the amount of 235 million euros for the municipal measures financed by the program, but with the intervention of the fund, they were reduced to 33.3 million euros specifically for these projects. At the same time, in an interview with “Epicenter”, the head of the fund, Rumen Porozhanov, confirmed that the European Commission hired a company to conduct an audit regarding the procedures of the municipalities and their actions as a contracting authority. According to Porozhanov, there is still no report on the results of this audit, which covers the sudden absorption of money under the municipal measures in 2015. Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev answered evasively that there is no information about a sanction of such an eerie amount and that he refuses to comment on fears and rumors.
The imposition of a financial correction in the amount of 250 million euros will be an absolute record if it happens. So far, two flat corrections have been imposed on Bulgaria – under the “Environment” program and under the “Regional Development” program. The correction under the OPOS was in the amount of BGN 152.9 million and amounted to 9.5% of the 239 contracts checked. According to OPRR, a flat correction was imposed for nearly BGN 133 million. Both penalties were at the expense of the budget, because it is assumed that the violations in them are of a systemic nature and the beneficiaries should not bear the blame. The special thing is that the treasury did not lose a financial resource from the EU, since the money intended for the problematic projects was diverted to other projects.
With the Rural Development Program, however, such a redirection is impossible because the old program period has ended. Transferring the blame to the municipalities will be tantamount to bankruptcy for a huge part of them.
The news of huge penalties comes amid a spending spree over the past year to absorb funds under the old program period and boasts of a record absorption of the funds. At the end of 2015, the DFZ announced weekly how many hundreds of millions they had paid out, according to their final accounts, the utilization rate reached 94%. At the same time, it has long been clear that this is one of the most problematic programs, with the highest error rate and periodic suspension or withdrawal of payments. The municipal measures, which are now pointed out as problematic – for renewing the development of settlements and for the provision of basic services in rural areas, were also indicated as problematic in the latest report on the activities of the departmental general directorate in Brussels. Their total value is 1.1 billion euros. Over the years, the PRDP has been periodically sanctioned for various types of violations – buying expensive super-luxury jeeps and yachts for rural tourism, double financing of small RES sites with European money – from the PRDP and another European program, wasting large resources on advertising, etc.
Already yesterday, in an interview for bTV, Rumen Porozhanov announced his readiness to resign from his post. He was not worried about the DANS inspection. The other day, Porozhanov admitted that he was under pressure because of affected economic interests due to suspended projects. DFZ refused to pay off a number of guest house projects, as well as payment for two expensive yachts under the fisheries development program. 3-4 large municipal projects were also not paid for. Porozhanov added that the fund was regularly checked. Prime Minister Boyko Borisov also made a laconic comment about the entry of DANS into the fund yesterday. “The best experts from DANS and the prosecutor’s office are working on the case. The fight against corruption is done at the highest levels, where the money is,” commented Borisov.
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