The EC has decided to transfer €1.47 billion to Bulgaria under the Recovery Plan

The European Commission announced today that it is granting Bulgaria €1.465 billion from the third payment under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP).

"On December 2, the European Commission adopted a partially positive assessment of Bulgaria's third payment request from its National Recovery and Resilience Plan. The Commission found that Bulgaria had successfully completed 48 of the 50 milestones and targets related to the third payment request, but also found that milestone 220 (Establishment and start of operations of an anti-corruption body) and part of the requirements of milestone 222 (Entry into force of legal act(s) on criminal proceedings and the accountability and criminal liability of the chief prosecutor) had not been satisfactorily completed at that stage. As a result, the Commission proposed to temporarily suspend part of the total amount of the third payment in accordance with the Recovery and Resilience Facility Regulation," the European Commission said in response to a query from BTA.

After receiving an opinion from the Economic and Financial Committee of the Council and a response from the Bulgarian authorities on the preliminary assessment, the European Commission adopted on December 22 an official decision on a partial third payment of €1.465 billion and a temporary withholding of €152.9 million.

Bulgaria has six months to take action and implement the remaining reforms under the third payment. Once the key milestones have been met, the remainder of the payment will be released," the European Commission added.

Bulgaria submitted its third request for payment under the Recovery and Resilience Facility on October 1 this year, with the total amount of funds amounting to €1.619 billion, BTA recalls.

The payment has the largest number of milestones and targets, covering 22 reforms and 19 investments. The leading measures are related to continuing reforms in areas such as research and innovation, decarbonization, improving the framework for managing state-owned enterprises, developing e-health, etc.

Translated with DeepL.