Deputy PM Pekanov: Funding for Sofia will be reduced without threatening future construction of the underground

A working meeting with the Mayor of Sofia Yordanka Fandakova and her team was held in the Council of Ministers on June 29. “We addressed the problems we find in the distribution of European funds in the country, which directly affects its development,” caretaker Deputy Prime Minister for European Funds Atanas Pekanov said.

"Once again I state firmly that the logic of my position regarding the financing for the capital is purely economic. Five of the six regions of our country are among the poorest in Europe. Sofia region is not among them, but continues to receive a disproportionately large part of the funds and money will be reduced," he said.

Pekanov and his expert team pointed out that the administrative keeping of Sofia in the South-West planning region is a serious mistake for the country's overall strategy. The majority of EU capitals are separated into separate economic regions. Only Bulgaria continues not to follow this approach in order to guarantee more funds especially for the capital. The decision not to remove Sofia district from the South-West region by the previous government for the next programming period bodes additional problems and risks the money for the other settlements in the South-West region.

According to Pekanov, a sustainable model of financing infrastructure projects has not been established in the capital and to some extent it has been taught to receive a "free lunch". The European institutions have been telling us for years that this must stop and that the money they give us must go to cohesion, and not as a priority for our only region, which is doing a little better. Accordingly, it should look for better and more sustainable models to finance itself to a greater extent with its own revenues.

"We opened this discussion because it is important for the long-term development of Bulgaria. We have never questioned the importance of the Sofia underground as a leading project. Although we are convinced that this is not the right mechanism for financing important infrastructure projects. We have not threatened the underground project, but there is and will be a reduction in the funds for the capital, and according to our current estimates, the funding under the Plan needs to be reduced by about BGN 200 million. It is right that this money goes to education and healthcare for all Bulgarian citizens, and not only to individual projects in the capital," the Deputy Prime Minister noted.

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