The Committee on European Affairs and Oversight of European Funds has held hearing on 27 December 2013 of the Vice Premier in charge of the European Funds Zinaida Zlatanova.

The head of the committee, MP Mladen Chervenyakov, asked what were the recommendations made by the European Commission on the initial version of the Partnership Agreement and what are the next steps needed for the document to be made final.

Zinaida Zlatanova has enumerated the comments and recommendations of the EC on the current version of the document. The EC suggests more attention to be paid to the fields of healthcare, waste management, waters, education, information technologies. The commission recommends also more impetus to be given to the competitiveness of the small and medium size companies, to the innovations, the renewable energy sources and to the administrative capacity. The deadline for reworking the document is the middle of December 2013. After December 13th the cabinet will present the Agreement to the public and hold discussions. The document will be submitted to the Council of Ministers for approval in the second half of January.  

The Chairman of the Committee on European Affairs and Oversight of European Funds, Mladen Chervenyakov, proposed to prolong the term for collection of opinions. He underscored more administrative capacity should be used in order to prepare a final version of the Agreement conformant to the requirements set in the recommendations of the EC.