November 18 (SeeNews) - The European Union executive on Wednesday said it has unblocked 82.6 million euro ($123.5 million) in pre-accession aid to Bulgaria after the government in Sofia improved its management of EU funds.
"... the [European] Commission is lifting the suspension of payments for the accession-related programmes Phare and the Transition Facility in Bulgaria," the Commission spokesman, Mark Gray, said.
"The decision shows that Bulgaria has taken the recommendations of the Commission seriously and improved the financial management and control of EU funds," Gray added.
Bulgaria has been allocated a total of 658.3 million euro in Phare funding for the period between 2004 and 2007. The country has so far notified to the EU drawdowns totalling 382 million euro.
In July 2008, the Commission froze 250 million euro under the Phare programme and also blocked 121 million euro under the SAPARD programme for aid to farmers and 115 million euro worth of payments under its ISPA pre-accession programme. The Commission also withdrew the accreditation of the Central Financing and Contracting Unit at the Finance Ministry and the Implementing Agency at the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, effectively banning them from handling EU funds.
The funds under ISPA were unfrozen in May while 19.7 million euro in SAPARD financing were unblocked in September, according to information from the Representation of the European Commission in Bulgaria.
"[...] the fact that the Commission was not able to re-accredit the implementing agency in the Ministry of Finance shows that more efforts are needed," Gray also said on Wednesday.
"In particular, Bulgaria must apply lessons learned from its experience with the management of pre-accession funds to Structural and Cohesion Funds. In addition, Bulgaria should further strengthen the legal and judicial protection against fraud and conflict of interest," he added.
In November 2008 Bulgaria, which joined the EU in 2007, lost 220 million euro under the Phare programme after the EU refused to restore the accreditation of the two local agencies handling the funding.
Bulgaria will have access to more than 11 billion euro in EU structural and cohesion funds from 2007 to 2013.
($ = 0.6684 euro)