Structural Funds and Cohesion Fund

A high level conference dedicated to "EU cohesion policy: post-2020 perspectives for convergence and sustainable regions" will be held on 8 June 2018 at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia. The event will be the first public debate on the proposal for the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2021-2027, which was announced in May.

New zoning of the country is being prepared because of the European funds, which our country will receive after 2020. The decision on which areas in which economic region to enter is important because of the cohesion funds, bTV points out.

"If there is something that Bulgaria will insist on and will hold firmly, this is the theme for the Cohesion Funds," Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said at the joint press conference at the National Palace of Culture with EC President Jean-Claude Juncker.

In his words, the most risk-free prospect for the EU is to build infrastructure in the Balkans to provide connectivity.

More than EUR 2 billion will be received by our country next year from the EU budget, sega reported. This became clear after the European Parliament approved the 2018 Union budget.

The budget provides for investment in research, scientific work, infrastructure, employment and handling problems with youth unemployment, as well as payments to farmers.

The government is proposing to the Parliament the ratification of a framework agreement for a EUR 200 million loan between the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) and Bulgaria, the government's press office said.

The Sofia metro is "an exemplary project" of transparent and effective use of EU structural funds, city mayor Yordanka Fandakova has said during visits to metro sites with Markku Markkula, President of the European Committee of the Regions.

Bulgaria will contribute EUR 5.9 M to the EU package of EUR 3 B due to be disbursed to Turkey as part of its commitment to keep migrants from entering Europe.

This comes after EU governments agreed on Wednesday evening on the mechanism to provide the funding.

The European Commission has adopted a package of cross-border cooperation programmes totaling EUR 1 B to back social and economic development in the regions on both sides of the EU's external borders.

Here are the opening remarks by EU Social Dialogue Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis in the debate on frontloading existing EU funds for investment in Greece:

Honourable Chair, Honourable Members,

A total of EUR 471 M will be spent on cross-border cooperation programs with Bulgaria's neighboring countries by 2020, according to Deputy Regional Development Minister Denitsa Nikolova.

Nikolova announced at a press conference in Blagoevgrad that half of the money would remain in Bulgaria to be spent on the development of economically backward and peripheral regions.