site.btaGERB Leader Hails Billions in New Recovery Plan Payment, Slams Opposition for Delays

GERB leader Boyko Borissov Monday hailed billions in a new National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) payment, claimed credit for all payments under this Plan and slammed the opposition for any delays. "The Bulgarian State’s portfolio for Bulgarian businesses is up by several billion levs," Borisov wrote in a Facebook post, referring to the third NRRP payment of the amount of EUR 1.47 billion.

He says further: "I want to emphasize that, under this completely failed Recovery Plan, the funds received from the European Commission over the past year total more than BGN 4.5 billion, which exceeds more than half of our total allocation under the NRRP. These funds represent real support for the Bulgarian economy and for public investments. [...]  We must not forget that for nearly four years Bulgaria was the only EU country that received no payments under the NRRP. The plan failed because of the Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria coalition, which introduced so-called 'reforms' to allow [MP and former Interior Minister] Boyko Rashkov to head the Commission for Combatting Corruption and Forfeiture of Illegally Acquired Assets. They expected that the billions from the Plan would go to their oligarchs, and that is why everything stalled."

He goes on to say that now "the results speak for themselves: the difference between governing with excuses and governing with results is measurable in billions of euros for Bulgaria".

The Monday payment was made after the European Commission assessed that Bulgaria had successfully completed 48 of the 50 milestones and targets linked to the payment request.