Bulgarian MSMEs, high-tech cos eligible for 3.6 bln euro in EU grants from 2023

By September 23, Bulgaria will seek approval from the European Commission for its second operating programme for the new 2021-2027 period, the Scientific research, Innovations and Digitalisation for Intelligent Transformation programme, for a total of 2.14 billion levs, the ministry said in a press release over the weekend.

An approval request for the Competitiveness and Innovations operating programme has already been lodged with the Commission.

The ministry reaffirmed its intention to channel 735 million levs in grants to small businesses by the end of 2022, of which 600 million levs are derived from Bulgaria's national Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP).

Cybersecurity, IT systems and technology upgrades as well as intellectual property development and the construction of solar photovoltaic installations for own use are some of the types of projects which will be funded out of those grants.

(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)