Documents from the European Commission, which show intend of non-reimbursement of funds paid under the Rural Development Programme (RDP) in 2013 have not been received at the Ministry of Agriculture and Food until March 21, 2014.
Up to the present moment, the sum of BGN 290 mln has been paid back to Bulgaria. This is the first tranche of the funds paid to Bulgaria by the EC. The practice of deferred reimbursement was applied at the Commission during the last two years. In this period, the full amount of the requested expenditures in the fourth quarter applications / Q4 /has not been reimbursed only once, but at least in two installments.
At the beginning of 2014, the European Commission paid attention to the Member States that the cost claims under the RDP for the last quarter of 2013 is likely to be repaid in several installments.
We expect the remaining funds declared by Bulgaria to be repaid in the coming, the claims funds amounted to BGN 693 mln of the total public funds.