Reports of fraud, conflicts of interest and an organized criminal group that had apparently siphoned off aid prompted the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission (EC), to freeze around €800 million in aid to the country in July of last year. Now the EC has ruled that Bulgaria has cleaned up its act.
“They’ve put in place, over the last few months, the action plan in order to allow us to free up that money,” said EC agriculture affairs spokesman Michael Mann.
The announcement comes as Bulgaria’s new center-right government, which came to power in July, tries to make good on campaign promises to stamp out corruption. This week, Bulgarian prosecutors charged the former agriculture minister with abuse of office over allegations that he engineered 15 swaps of state-owned land for private lands at far below the market value. Last month, the former head of the state forestry agency was slapped with similar charges. Bulgaria’s former government had come under criticism for doing nothing in the face of widespread crime and corruption.
First Chunk Available Soon
The EU will release €19 million ($27 million) of the aid right away, while Bulgaria can apply for a further €90 million before the end of the year. The country will also have to submit its anti-fraud plan to Brussels by the end of the year. The money, under the Special Accession Program for Agriculture and Rural Development (SAPARD), will no doubt be welcome to Bulgarian farmers, who have been waiting for the EC to release grant money since taking out bank loans to improve their dairies and farms.
Six years before Bulgaria became an EU member in 2007, the country became eligible to receive and manage some €53 million annually from the SAPARD program. The 2001 decision marked the first time the European Commission had allowed a non-member country to manage its own aid from the EU; at the time this was thought to prepare future EU members to manage aid from the bloc.
That optimism soured. By 2008, the EU’s anti-fraud office, OLAF, was reporting that Bulgaria had misused some €32 million in farm aid. One report described the schemes of a “criminal network” of more than 50 companies based in Bulgaria and abroad, connected to two businessmen with ties to top Bulgarian politicians. One scheme involved selling second-hand meat-processing equipment to front companies, and then buying the equipment back as new, expensive equipment using SAPARD money. OLAF also criticized Bulgaria’s inertia in dealing with fraud allegations and the country’s weak judiciary.
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--Beth Kampschror
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