Bulgaria outlines urgent measures to fight EU fund fraud

(SOFIA) - The Bulgarian government on Friday ordered urgent measures to fight EU fund fraud after Brussels recently froze money due to corruption concerns.

"We have exactly one month to pull ourselves together, concentrate our efforts and perform a huge number of tasks to present the European Commission with evidence that we have at least begun to address the areas of concern," Deputy Prime Minister for EU funds Meglena Plugchieva told a press conference.

Bulgaria, which joined the EU in 2007, has until June 16 to report on measures taken to combat misuse of European farming, infrastructure and regional development subsidies.

Corruption concerns prompted the European Commission to freeze some 450 million euros of subsidies and to threaten to suspend another 6.8 billion euros available to Bulgaria until 2013, if Sofia does not show progress.

Plugchieva said Bulgaria had "a pressing need" for funds but warned: "This is European taxpayers' money and we cannot allow any misuse."

She ordered tighter controls and checks at agencies which manage the funds, and set deadlines for progress reports. Plugchieva also pledged to report to the government each week about specific measures taken.

Bulgarian prosecutors recently launched probes in at least two major cases of misuse of EU funds.

In February, police busted a criminal ring that had allegedly syphoned off more than 7.5 million euros of farm subsidies by buying second-hand equipment for the meat-processing industry and presenting it as new.

Prosecutors launched an investigation Thursday into the former head of the Bulgarian road agency, Vesselin Georgiev, for granting repair contracts worth more than 50 million euros to his brother's company.

After a series of scandals, Bulgaria's reputation was now "at its lowest," European Affairs Minister Gergana Grancharova was quoted as saying by the Standart daily on Friday.