site.btaGovernment Works With EC to Submit Request for Fourth Recovery Plan Payment

Finance Minister Georgi Klisurski Sunday said the caretaker government is working actively with the European Commission so as to submit a request for the fourth payment under Recovery and Resilience Facility by the end of March or early April. If it is submitted within that timeframe, the funds could reach Bulgaria around June or July.

Interviewed by Bulgarian National Radio, Klisurski said this will be one of the Cabinet's major goals, with the fourth payment expected to be up to EUR 900 million.

Klisurski said the Rosen Zhelyazkov cabinet had managed to ensure receipt of the second and third payments, although more than EUR 100 million were withheld from the third payment because the country still lacks a functioning and sufficiently effective accountability mechanism for the prosecutor general. According to Klisurski, the EC also withheld the payment of EUR 250 million from Bulgaria because independent members had not been appointed to the anti-corruption commission. After the commission was dissolved, the EC will seek to withhold another EUR 250 million retroactively, the Finance Minister said.

Klisurski highlighted several draft laws that Parliament could adopt in a bid to increase the funds Bulgaria receives in June by hundreds of millions of euro. He said the first priority is the legislation on lobbying: if it is not adopted, up to EUR 400 million could be withheld from the fourth payment under the Recovery and Resilience Plan.

Klisurski added that work is under way on further payments, again focusing on legislative initiatives and reforms required by the European Commission, so that Bulgaria can submit a request for the fifth payment on time, around the end of August.