site.btaDeputy Minister Nankov: ECA's Audit of Bulgarian Roads Is Planned, Not Based on Alert

May 8 (BTA) - The European Court of Auditors audit of EU support for road construction in Bulgaria is a regular, planned audit, and not based on an alert, Deputy Regional Development and Public Works Minister Nikolay Nankov told reporters here Tuesday evening. The audit is being conducted in several EU Member States, he added. Nankov was commenting on a statement by Socialist MP Georgi Svilenski, who called the audit by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) a "European slap in the face" for the ruling GERB party.

Earlier in the day, it transpired that the ECA is conducting an audit of EU support for road construction in Bulgaria, Czechia, Poland and Spain. The auditors will examine whether the European Commission's actions and funding are ensuring that Member States remain on track to complete the network on time and improve connectivity for citizens.

Nankov told reporters that this is a regular audit which checks not only a given Member State, but also the European Commission's activity related to the commitments and deadlines for the construction of pan-European transport corridors, "which we are not just implementing but to a large extent overimplementing". The audit will continue until 2020, he noted.

Nankov also said that the audit is not of specific construction projects but of the implementation's complexity, of whether the deadlines for the construction of motorways have been met, and of transport accessibility along the nine pan-European transport corridors. "We are talking about the Trakia, Maritsa, and Strouma motorways," he specified.

"Hemus motorway is not part of a pan-European transport corridor but we have made a commitment and we will build it," he went on to say.

"The topic of motorways coming from the Bulgarian Socialist Party's mouth sounds not just ill-grounded but also funny," Nankov said, and accused the Bulgarian Socialist Party of insolence when they talk about EU projects, EU funding or the topic of roads and motorways.

Nankov was in Lovech to inspect the repair works in Todor Kirkov Square, carried out as part of a project funded under Operational Programme Regions in Growth. He was accompanied by Lovech Regional Governor Vanya Subcheva and Lovech Mayor Kornelia Marinova.

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