A Hungarian Member of Parliament, Antonio De Blasio, the body’s rapporteur on the fight against fraud, has blasted Bulgaria for what he says is the country’s failure to step misuse of European Union funding. The attack comes after some EU monies for Bulgaria were halted because of alleged mismanagement in the so-called PHARE programmes and the Cohesion Fund projects. “Bulgaria as a country should not be blamed for this. It is the current Bulgarian Government, led by the Socialist Party, which has not been able to end illegal actions concerning EU funds.

The government has not been capable of setting up an effective, reliable and transparent management and financial control structure. Networks of interest conflicts in the overall management of EU funds basically make it impossible to clear the system,” said De Blasio. Recent cases, monitoring and on-the-spot (audit) checks show that not much progress has been made since the country’s EU accession. “Firstly, there is a lack of knowledge about EU rules and procedures and the basic management know-how is very weak. Also, administrative officials are low paid so bribing is a common practice and a real judiciary reform, which would e.g. enable immediate recoveries, is still pending.