The Ministry of Agriculture with action plan to speed up utilisation of EU funds

The Ministry of Agriculture and State Fund Agriculture are implementing a special plan to speed up utilisation of EU funds under OP Rural Development (RDP). At the heart of the plan lies an already completed transfer of BGN 600 mln toward the most attractive measures under the scheme, according to an official statement of Mr. Miroslav Naydenov's Ministry of Agriculture in response to a BGNESS report citing claims by the EC spokesman Roger Waite that Bulgaria may miss out on BGN 500 mln from the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development. The danger arises from the so-called "N+2" rule stipulating that any unused funds two years into the programme are subject to automatic decommitment. Because of this regulation, Bulgaria lost €39 mln under RDP at the end of 2011, after managing to save BGN 237 mln by transferring the money to a guarantee fund for farm credits. Payment requests will now be processed in the space of two rather than five months, according to the Agricultural Ministry's statement. This means that the period for consideration of requests for participation in the programme will be two and not five months, and beneficiaries will have six months to ask for advance payment rather than the previous three. The Agricultural Ministry promises that the guarantee fund will start operating very soon.

As of the beginning of September, financial agreements under RDP amount to BGN 3.7 bn (57%), while BGN 2.1 bn have been paid out (33%).The average share of agreed funding under axes 1,3 and 4 is 74%, but with axis 2 it is just 18%. Under RDP rules, a minimum of 25% of the scheme funds must be set aside for measures under axis 2, which poses a problem for Bulgaria due to the lack of beneficiaries.

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