The explanatory campaign on direct payments under the Rural Development OP kicks off with a budget of more than EUR 700 million. The goal is the producers to get acquainted with the major requirements, payment methods and also with the criteria that the activities have to meet, in order to get European funding.

The documents for the new programme period, seizing 2014 – 2020 suffered several editions with the Oresharski cabinet, the final one right before its resignation, but were never approved by the EC due to many mistakes found – 426. That was said in an exclusive interview for Radio Bulgaria by Minister Desislava Taneva. The new Borissov government kicked off in the beginning of November last year and in December a check up started of the payments under the programs’ stages that had ended. The audit still hasn’t finished today, the Minister says and adds:

“Around EUR 150 million are in a process of checking and the sanctions imposed so far come up to the tune of EUR 60 million. The violations against municipal measures and abuse related to public procurements are the major subjects of sanctioning.”

Another version of the program was submitted in Brussels a bit over a month ago and EU money is now expected to finally reach Bulgarian farmers. According to Desislava Taneva, the optimistic term for its approval is July 2015. Despite this, they will try to start payments in advance, before the final approval, in order for Bulgarian farmers to be able to use the so needed funding.

“We tend to take this risk – the program to be started as early as this month and in case of a consensus I hope to issue an order for the opening of the measure for investments for farms”, Minister Taneva further comments. “Projects to be given a priority will be those mainly implying investments in stock breeding, perennials, growing of vegetables, innovations, energy effectiveness’ improvement and investments in rural and wild regions, including the one of northwest Bulgaria.”

The ministry of agriculture and foods will try to reduce the risk of premature opening of the program by using the requirements that were in force over the previous period and the so-called integrated projects or collective investments won’t be funded till the final approval of the programme by Brussels.

There will be a change in the requirements of one of the most popular sections – Young Farmer, as the granting of the initial aid will be under an alevaited procedure. However, the requirements for funding of investment projects are getting tightened. According to Minister Taneva, this follows an EC recommendation, demanding funding to be provided to vital and effective farms. Special attention will be paid at the opening of the new chapter in order to avoid market distortions, as some happened over the previous period. For instance, the EUR 10 million allocated to the breeding of Californian worms.

There will be barely any other money, compensating Bulgarian milk producers for their losses due to the Russian embargo. Support is envisaged only to dry milkand butter producers. The first product cannot be found here, while the second one is loosely presented. Bulgaria and Romania, with their common stock breeding structure have managed to attract so far the support of only six EU member-states, which is not enough. Bulgarian milk producers will have to rely on national programs – the support per animal, aimed at cow farms and the de minimis program for sheep breeders.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev