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Bulgaria should not contribute to EU recovery plan, official says
Nov 28, 2008, 8:21 GMT
Sofia - Bulgaria should not take part in financing the European Union's emergency economic recovery package, a top official said Friday in Sofia.
'It is out of place to finance the European economy with Bulgarian money,' the head of the parliamentary budget and finance committee, Rumen Ovcharov, told the private Nova television.
Ovcharov, Bulgaria's former finance minister, said he would not support a rebalancing of the 2009 budget to support the EU's 200- billion-euro (260-billion-dollar) economic recovery plan.
His remarks follow the cancellation of 220 million euros in EU subsidies on Tuesday, when a deadline from Brussels to Sofia to cut corruption expired.
The subsidies were a part of programmes worth a total of 486 million euros that Brussels suspended owing to widespread abuse of EU funds in Bulgaria.
Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007 despite failing to fully meet membership criteria, particularly in the area of justice. The Balkan country's courts remain inefficient and corrupt.
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