Bulgarian authorities in charge of liaising with the European Commission concerning the spending of European Union financing had shown “negligence and arrogance”, according to Meglena Plougchieva, Deputy Prime Minister in charge of controlling Bulgaria’s use of EU funds.

Plougchieva took the newly-created post on April 22, and on May 12 she gave her first extensive interview to private broadcaster Nova TV. The interview came after Plougchieva’s first trip to Brussels in her capacity as a minister on May 6-7, where she met Michael Leigh, Director-General of the EC’s directorate-general for enlargement.
Plougchieva received a show of support from Leigh, but a day after her visit, he sent a letter to Deputy Finance Minister Dimitar Ivanovski, who is also Bulgaria’s National Authorising Officer . In the letter, 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.

Leigh gave Ivanovski a June 16 deadline to take the necessary corrective action and provide a report with evidence that all areas of concern were being addressed.

On May 12, Plougchieva said that there had been a lot of unfinished work in the ministries in charge of absorbing and allocating EU funds: the ministries of regional development and public works, finance, environment, and transport.

Reacting to Leigh’s letter, Plougchieva said that none of the relevant ministers, Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev and Foreign Minister Ivailo Kalfin had been aware of these problems. “It was not until things became really serious that they were informed,” she said.

She said that it was Ivanovski’s job to keep top state officials informed.

On May 12, Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski told private Re:TV that Ivanovski had not fulfilled one of his main duties, which was to give him and the other ministers proper information. This, together with Leigh’s letter, made Ivanovski appear the main culprit for Bulgaria’s problems with the EC. Leigh’s letter showed the level - or absence - of proper communication between Bulgaria and the EC.

Leigh wanted Ivanovski to come up with a new policy to improve working-level contacts with EC services and “provide working level contact persons in each agency that handles EU funding”.

“More open communication to improve transparency and reduce room for misunderstandings would be encouraged,” the letter said.

Although Ivanovski’s guilt was acknowledged by Plougchieva and Oresharski, by the time The Sofia Echo went to print, Ivanovski still had his job.

Leigh’s letter was the latest negative reaction from Brussels to Bulgaria’s lack of willingness to cope with its problems in absorbing EU funds. The first harsh reaction was from EC President Jose Manuel Barroso. On March 28 this year, Barroso told Stanishev that corruption and organised crime did not have a place in the EU.

The fact that Leigh’s letter said that the steps taken by Bulgaria so far had not given the EC sufficient basis to determine that the contracts concluded under Phare and Transition Facility programmes were “legal, regular and in conformity with the applicable rules”, made some Bulgarian-language media speculate that Bulgaria’s membership in the EU could be “frozen”. For this to happen, the European Council would have to implement article 7 of the Treaty of Nice that could prevent the country from participating in EU voting procedures.