The second EUR 653 million payment under the Recovery and Sustainability Plan (RSP) will be denied to Bulgaria.

It is not in question, but it will be refused for sure, even though Bulgaria has implemented 85% of the reforms under the second payment. The European Commission (EC) uses such a formula, if a reform is more important it increases the value, so there will be no revenue under the second payment.

This is what Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev said after the meeting of the Council of Ministers, BGNES reported. 

The payment will be denied because for four years Bulgaria has implemented an insignificant part of the necessary reforms, Donchev stressed. In his words, the funds we have used under the first payment are half. "We have managed to pay these funds in the country. With the money we have we will be able to pay by September this year," he said. 

The deadline for payments under the national plan is August next year. "After that date, expenditure is not eligible. That is, if we have payments on some of the projects that are September, October 2026 they are covered by the budget. We have only received the first payment and we have only paid half of it. The payments are just over 10% for 4 years. Now in a year and a half we have to pay 90% which is obviously impossible. We have agreed with our EC colleagues that, as difficult and onerous as it is to start an analysis of which of the projects under the plan should be dropped. If they are not dropped now they will remain to be financed by the state budget, which will generate the risk of a deficit in 2026," he said. 

Each procurement will be evaluated on whether the project has started, whether there is a public tender, whether implementation has started and there is already an award. 

The government has been working for several weeks on a full analysis of the Sustainability Plan, Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova also announced. "We have identified 7 projects that will not be able to be implemented by 30 August next year, and 15 other projects have a very low possibility of implementation. This means that these investments must remain at the expense of the national budget and this will have a very negative impact on the country's public finances for 2025 and 2026. We are trying to refine each project, what we can save, but where it is impossible we will have to reduce these projects. I hope to have concrete results in two weeks," Petkova added.  

Energy Minister Zhecho Stankov has warned that "if the reforms are forced as they are in the PSP, they will lead to great damage for the energy sector. "And the burden for this will be borne by Bulgarian citizens," Stankov added.

According to the Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Ivan Ivanov, "we are talking about criminal inaction for 15 months", which will lead to the fact that the delay of the renovation programme makes it impossible to implement it in its entirety. And it is a part of the RSP, Ivanov added. | BGNES