Delay of additional information, lack of qualified staff at national and local levels and a lack of parliamentary support were some of the findings in a report adopted by Parliament's subcommittee on the absorption of European Union funds on May 17 2008.

The report was presented in Black Sea town of Kavarna and covered funds absorbed by Bulgaria for the period January 1 2007 - June 8 2008, Bulgarian National Radio said.

According to sub-committee's chairman Radoslav Ivanov, the European Commission criteria should be followed by the book and it was about time people understood that talking about European money was about following European regulations. Things in Bulgaria had to start happening the EU way, not the Bulgarian way, Focus news agency quoted Ivanov as saying.

“Every time we see that there is some delay in the financial framework, we will initiate legislative changes so that no one feels he can last forever in a certain position,” he said.

The report did not differ much from the letter sent by Michael Leigh, director-general of DG Enlargement with the European Commission to Bulgarian authorities on May 8 2008.

Leigh cited the lack of proper communication as an urgent issue for Bulgaria to address if it wanted the EC to resume payments under EU pre-accession programmes. The payments were halted as of January this year after a series of controversies involving serious conflicts of interest among high-level Bulgarian officials in charge of spending EU funds

Meglena Plougchieva, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of controlling Bulgaria’s use of EU funds, is expected to review the report next week and send it to Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev.

By May 30 2008 Plougchieva has to present Stanishev with a list of measures aimed at improving Bulgaria's administrative capacity in absorption of EU funds.