We will most likely lose billions of European funding, and we are talking about 100 million for elections. In line with the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RPP) – less than now we cannot finish. The first tranche was received during the official office, since then we have not received any more payments. He warned about this in an interview for “Face to Face” on bTV the former deputy prime minister for management of European funds in two offices Atanas Pekanov.
"European funding is more diplomacy, you negotiate with the European Commission and try to convince them of something. The EC said that the deadline is 2026 - until then there is a year and a half, we have not done anything on half of the things, a large part of the public procurements have not started, this will be irretrievably lost money. I was hoping that Asen Vassilev would at least push his battery project. The decarbonisation road map and the Personal Bankruptcy Act are still on the agenda, preventing the next payment from being unlocked. We will miss the deadlines and lose this money," he warned.
Pekanov is of the opinion that it is high time to clearly tell people that Bulgaria will most likely not become a member of the Eurozone from June 1, 2025. "In June, we will most likely receive a negative convergence report. There is one criterion that is not met – inflation. The government did not do enough. It was stated in the IMF report: the fiscal policy is too expansive, too much money is given out. I have always supported Vassilev in raising incomes, but this should be better thought out, for some groups the fiscal policy should have been tightened," he added.