Financial assistance
The EU provides specific targeted financial aid for acceding countries, candidates and potential future members in order to support their efforts to enhance political, economic and institutional reforms. After the accession of a country is completed, the EU provides financial support from the European Structural and Cohesion funds.
Pre-Accession Assistance
The EC pre-accession aid to Bulgaria is mainly provided by three instruments: the PHARE programme, ISPA programme and SAPARD programme.
The PHARE programme finances mainly projects linked to the transposition of the acquis and institution building across all sectors. An increasing proportion of these projects is delivered by twinning (twinning provides the framework for administrations and semi-public organisations in the candidate countries to work with their counterparts in Member States in order to implement the acquis communautaire).
Phare also finances investment projects in the areas of cross-border cooperation and (since 2000) economic and social cohesion that are not covered by the ISPA and SAPARD instruments.
The Phare programme entails national, cross-border, multi-country (multi-beneficiary) and horizontal projects.
In addition to its annual PHARE allocation, Bulgaria receives additional funding in the context of Bulgaria’s commitment to close units 1-4 of the Kozloduy nuclear power plant.
Finally, Phare helps to meet the cost of participation in EC programmes and agencies.
Phare comes under the responsibility of the Directorate-General for Enlargement of the European Commission, which is also responsible for overall coordination of pre-accession assistance.
The ISPA programme (which started in 2000) supports large-scale environmental and transport infrastructure projects. The ISPA programming framework is governed by environment and transport strategies drawn up by the Bulgarians authorities and agreed with the European Commission. ISPA comes under the responsibility of the Directorate-General for Regional Policy of the European Commission.
The SAPARD programme (which started in 2000) supports development measures for the agriculture and rural areas. The SAPARD programming framework is governed by a multi-annual National Rural Development Plan. SAPARD is under the responsibility of Directorate-General for Agriculture.
During the pre-accession period Bulgaria receives financial assistance from the EC also in the framework of the European Communities’ Programmes and Agencies, as well as from the European financial institutions (European Investment Bank (EIB) and European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) (EBRD).
Post-Accession Assistance
After its accession to the Union Bulgaria will be eligible for assistance from the European Structural and Cohesion funds.
Under its mid-2004 agreement with the EU, Bulgaria will receive 240 million euro on top of the previously announced funding of 4.4 billion euro from the EU's 2007-2009 budget.
The overall coordination of the EC financial assistance for Bulgaria is performed by the Ministry of Finance.
The Minister of Finance of Bulgaria is the National Aid Coordinator and National ISPA Coordinator. He exerts his powers by:
- organising and carrying out the activities related to coordination, programming, management, monitoring and assessment of the financial aid provided to Bulgaria under the EU pre-accession financial instruments;
- organising and monitoring the efficient and lawful management of the resources from the EU Structural and Cohesion Funds in compliance with Bulgaria's policies for accession to the EU;
- coordinating the joint monitoring mechanism for implementation of the programmes funded by the EC instruments.
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