The caretaker government is working very hard with the European Commission (EC) to submit a request for the fourth payment under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) at the end of this month or the beginning of next. Thus, the funds will be able to arrive in Bulgaria around June or July. This was stated by the caretaker Minister of Finance Georgi Klisurski on the program “Sunday 150“ on BNR.
According to him, this will be one of the major goals of the caretaker cabinet. A maximum of 900 million euros is expected for the fourth payment.
Klisurski said that the “Zhelyazkov“ cabinet managed to ensure that Bulgaria received the second and third payments under the RRP, albeit with deductions. Over 100 million euros were withheld from Bulgaria's third payment, as there is still no functioning and sufficiently good mechanism for accountability of the chief prosecutor. In addition, since there were no elected independent members for the anti-corruption commission, the EC withheld another 250 million euros from Bulgaria. After the same commission was closed, the EC will retroactively seek to withhold another 250 million euros from Bulgaria, the finance minister explained.
He pointed out that they will seek constructive dialogue with the members of parliament in order to secure maximum funds for Bulgaria.
Georgi Klisurski singled out several draft laws that the parliament could adopt before being dissolved and thus increase by hundreds of millions the funds that Bulgaria will receive in June. First and foremost, he put the Lobbying Act - if it is not adopted, up to 400 million euros could be withheld from our fourth payment under the RRP.
The finance minister also said that they are working on the next payments after the fourth, again focusing on legislative initiatives, reforms that the European Commission requires from Bulgaria, so that in time, towards the end of August, we can submit a request for the fifth payment.