At the meeting of the Committee on European Affairs and Oversight of the European Funds (CEAOEF) held on 03.10.2012, the Minister of management of EU funds Mr. Tomislav Donchev briefed the MPs with the development of the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020 negotiations, the preparation of the Partnership Agreement between the Republic of Bulgaria and the EU, as well as the results of the new SIBILA model application (assessing the EU funds impact on Bulgaria’s economy.)
Minister Donchev stated that the Multiannual Financial Framework 2014-2020 negotiations on are to be completed by the end of 2012. Two groups of countries stand as a part of these negotiations: "Friends of Cohesion Policy", in which Bulgaria is included and "Friends of better spending "(also known as the 'net donor countries").
Bulgaria considers the reform of Cohesion Policy extremely important and is against budget cuts for this policy. Keeping the ceiling allocation of Cohesion Policy resources by Member States at 2.5% of GDP, "our country will receive about 8 billion euro for the Operational Programs without national co-financing and the Program for rural areas" Minister Donchev added. He speculated that the amount which Bulgaria would potentially lose is almost 380 million euro. That scenario would happen if 10 billion euro from the Cohesion Fund are transferred to the "Connecting Europe Facility".
So far under the operational programs have been contracted almost 14 billion leva (or 90% of the total budget) and 4.2 billion leva have been paid out, (about 27%). Regarding the process of preparing the Partnership Agreement with the EU, Minister Donchev noted that a working group has been assembled with the participation of the central government and local authorities, economic and social partners, the civil society, academia and others. The proposals for thematic objectives have already been discussed together with the programs through which they will be implemented, as well as the leading institutions to develop each of them. The operational programs for the next programming period are expected to be reduced to five. In this regard, Minister Donchev noted that "fewer financial instruments means more integrated projects and simpler system." Next milestone would be the preparation of a detailed analysis of the regional differences, development needs and growth potential, to serve as basis for the operational programs formulation.
Dr. Ralitsa Ganeva, associate professor at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", presented the new model SIBILA. It can track the impact of EU investments on GDP, its individual components; employment and unemployment. According to estimates made by the model, as a result of the Structural and Cohesion Funds (SCF) use by the end of 2011, the unemployment rate in the country is 1.7% points lower than it would have been without the flow of these funds. SCF also have positive contribution to improving the employment. By the end of 2011 it increased by 2.6% compared to the scenario without EU funds, which translated into over 100 thousand more people employed.
In the discussion which followed, all MPs congratulated Minister Donchev and his team on the initiative to develop a model analyzing the effects of EU funds on Bulgaria’s economy. They proposed to consider, when using the SIBILA model, the possibility to expand its scope by indicators such as purchasing power parity, competitiveness and productivity. Another topic that sparked interest among MPs was determining the dividing line (the so-called demarcation) between the investments that will be financed under the separate programs, in order to achieve a balance in regional development (urban and rural municipalities, large and small cities).
In conclusion, Minister Donchev recalled that "Cohesion policy is not charity nor is it a kind of assistance to the poor EU countries. It is aimed at structural investments and is a matter of national responsibility of the respective Member State to become richer with the help of these investments”.