Half of the Payments under the Recovery and Resilience Plan Are at Risk, Said Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev

The second payment under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP), which amounts to 653 million euros, is not in question and will certainly be denied, even though Bulgaria has implemented 85% of the reforms required for the second payment. The funds from the first payment have been used, with half of them already paid out within the country. The available funds will last until September of this year. The big issue is that the deadline for payments under the National Plan is August next year. After this date, expenses will no longer be eligible, so we need to decide, after analysis, which projects from the Plan should be removed. If they are not removed now, they have to be financed from the national budget, which will lead to an extreme risk of a deficit by 2026, said Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev at a briefing following the Cabinet meeting on February 26.

In his words, the criterion by which projects will be dropped will be whether the project has started, whether a public procurement procedure has been conducted, and whether the implementation has begun. If the deadline is August next year and no public procurement has been carried out for a project, the chance of it being implemented is practically zero.

“We will be ambitious and try to complete all the reforms and save part of the funding and the budget for 2026,” added Tomislav Donchev.

"The analysis by the Ministry of Finance shows that there are 7 projects that cannot be completed by August 31, 2026," said Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova.

According to her, there are also 15 investments with low chances of implementation.

"If they remain at the expense of the budget, it will be fatal," Temenuzhka Petkova stressed and noted that each project is being carefully assessed.

"The situation in the energy sector is difficult. The reforms are unworkable for two main reasons - firstly, they threaten energy security and secondly they contradict the national interest," Energy Minister Zhecho Stankov said.

There are also problems in the Ministry of Regional Development, but here we are not talking about unfulfilled reforms, but about criminal inaction in the Insulation Programme and its delays, said Regional Development Minister Ivan Ivanov.

In the Ministry of Transport, the remaining reforms are also at high risk. The most important one is signing contracts with carriers for railway transport, said Transport Minister Grozdan Karadzhov. He expressed hope that the purchase of 35 trains could be saved, as well as securing funds for broadband access.