Deputy PM Tomislav Donchev expects Bulgaria to receive "zero" funding under second tranche of the Recovery and Resilience Plan - politicians exchange accusations

The government is ready to restart the procedure for receiving the second payment under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) by the end of March and to implement at least some of the projects included in it. This was announced by Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev at an extraordinary press conference on March 6.

According to him, the deadline for receiving information on which projects will be excluded or remain is tomorrow. Earlier in the day, at a roundtable, 'We Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria' (WCC-DB) members commented that failure to implement the projects under the plan will blow up the budget since the money would never come in.

However, Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova stated that failure to receive the funds under the Recovery and Resilience Plan would not negatively affect the budget.

"The funds from the European Union under the Recovery and Resilience Plan are neutral in relation to the budget of the Republic of Bulgaria, meaning that as much as they are in revenues, they are in expenditures, so nothing will explode," she commented.

Hours earlier, former Finance Minister Assen Vasilev accused the Ministry of Finance of having already accounted for the funds in the budget.

"The money under the RRP has been fully accounted for in the budget for 2025 and 2026—10 billion, even though the government claims the reforms are unachievable."

In the coming days, Bulgaria is facing the likelihood of a rejection for the second payment under the Recovery and Resilience Plan due to unfulfilled commitments.

"Nothing has happened with many of the projects. When I say nothing—I mean nothing! After the rejection, which we expect to receive for the second payment, we have a six-month period to restart the procedure and will not waste any time," Donchev stated.

Donchev also reminded that he had warned for three years that the funds under the plan would be lost. he energy sector would suffer the most from the possible non-implementation due to excessive requirements set in the document.

"As early as November, someone from Europe will tell our coal plants to 'stop working,' and then the acting energy minister, whoever that may be, will have to run to you and say 'We are starting power outages,'" commented Energy Minister Zhecho Stankov.

WCC-DB denied this information without explaining why the plan included the limitation of electricity production from coal.

"It should be stated categorically that the coal power plants are working. They worked all winter, and they continue to work. The RRP in no way affects them because carbon emissions are accounted for in the seventh payment," said Radoslav Ribarski from WCC-DB.

Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova reminded once again that WCC-DB's fiscal policy led to a sharp increase in debt in the budget, which also jeopardised energy security.

"What happened to those 900 million BGN that Mr. Vasilev took from the 'Energy System Security Fund,' and the 'Security Fund' currently has a deficit of nearly half a billion BGN?" Petkova asked.

However, according to the Energy Minister, the problem has been managed and it will be guaranteed that household customers will be compensated from the fund after the electricity market is deregulated on July 1.

"My first task was to run to the Ministry of Finance because the fund had a deficit of more than 100 million. By March, while the temporary budget is in place, thanks to the effective policy of this government, there is no deficit in the fund's budget," said Zhecho Stankov.

It is still unclear whether the deregulation of the electricity market for household consumers will take place, as requests for further postponement have been submitted to Parliament.