There are dozens of these types of lodgings in Bulgaria, mostly owned by politicians or people close to them. “Much of the EU money that goes to Bulgaria disappears in this way,” says Dimitrova. “Not everything, but a large part.”
False, says Minister Danitsa Sacheva of Social Affairs. Her ministry also receives a lot of European subsidies and good things are happening with that, she says. “This winter, half a million Bulgarians will receive food parcels, partly paid for from Brussels. And we will borrow money from Brussels to tackle unemployment.”
Exceptions
Yet she cannot deny that the scandal with the guesthouses was big and that Bulgaria has also seen other scandals with EU subsidies. But for her these remain exceptions, which are also tackled firmly.
“In general, Bulgaria is doing well. The facts prove it. Our country’s economy has grown nearly 2.5 times in the last ten years. Do you think that is really possible when there is so much corruption? No,” that is not possible.”
‘Don’t rely on paperwork’
In the European Parliament, there has been calls for years to tackle this type of fraud harder. Currently, the control of EU subsidies is still mainly carried out by national authorities, but many MEPs want Brussels to have much stricter supervision.
“Don’t rely on the paperwork, Brussels officials just have to go to these kinds of projects,” said Elena Yoncheva, MEP from a Bulgarian opposition party. “Bulgaria can hand in perfect documents, in which everything is correct, for a road that starts to deteriorate after a year. That’s because up to half of the money is lost.” She thinks it is naive to rely solely on national controls.
Process
Manolev, the state secretary who bought a guesthouse with EU money, had to leave soon after his fraud came out. As far as is known, the EU subsidy he received has not yet been repaid. He and others are still on trial, but investigative journalist Dimitrova has little faith in the outcome.
“I think the investigations would never have started if we hadn’t done the research ourselves. One way to solve this, perhaps a bit extreme, is for Brussels to temporarily reduce the subsidy to Bulgaria,” she sighs. She knows that means that the good Bulgarians have to suffer the bad. “But the money is now being used for corruption, to buy power and most of all for the benefit of a small group.”
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