site.btaPrime Minister Borissov Confers with European Court of Auditors President Caldeira

Prime Minister Borissov Confers with European Court of Auditors President Caldeira

Sofia, November 20 (BTA) - Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov conferred here on Friday with European Court of Auditors (ECA) President Vitor Caldeira, who is paying a working visit to Sofia, the Government Information Service said.

They focussed on the effective management of EU funds. Caldeira welcomed the Bulgarian Government's efforts to improve this management and pointed out that in recent years the European Commission and Member States have achieved progress in preventing and correcting errors.

Borissov thanked the ECA for the recommendations that help improve further the management of EU funds and noted the substantial progress that Bulgaria has made in the absorption of these funds since the beginning of the year. The European Commission also acknowledged this sizable growth, ranking Bulgaria second in the proportion of disbursements under the EU Structural Funds for the period between January 1 and October 12, 2015. "All these are tangible projects and benefits for Bulgarian citizens and result from our steady work and efforts to streamline the control systems," the PM pointed out.

In its sample for 2014, the ECA checked 13 transactions for Bulgaria under the European Social Fund and the Rural Development Programme and did not find quantifiable errors in any of them. For a second year running, no error was detected under the European Social Fund. The ECA also notes the effective action taken by Bulgaria to address the weaknesses identified in previous ECA reports, in particular concerning the land parcel identification system and the quality of on-site checks, the press release says.