Franz-Hermann Brüner called for better control over EU funds in Bulgaria

The Director-General of the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) Franz-Hermann Brüner called for improving the training of state administration, as well as for assessment of the risk in the process of allocation of EU funds. Brüner announced this after his meeting with Bulgaria's Minister of Finance Plamen Oresharski, BNR informed.

"It could not be expected that everything will become perfect all of a sudden but steps in the right direction have been taken", Brüner stressed. "We did not discuss any matter in details. We mainly focused on clarifying once again the communication in principle between the OLAF services and the Ministry of Finance", Bulgaria's Financial Minister summarized. Oresharski informed that so far OLAF had trained over 1300 state employees in the specific field of detecting EU funds malfeasances.

According to Brüner, the best way to prevent malfeasance was through enhanced communication between institutions. "We further specified the way in which the communication between OLAF services and the Ministry of Finance should flow", Minister Oresharski noted. He also highlighted that OLAF's Director-General had pointed out the good cooperation between OLAF and the Bulgarian Customs Agency so far.

Minister Oresharski refused to comment on the position of Bulgaria among other EU Member States with regards to the number of frauds revealed by OLAF. "In any case, we are not among the first half of [countries where] major frauds [are revealed], especially in respect of fiscal cases and incomes", Oresharski added. According to him, there was no major specific criticism aimed at the Ministry of Finance but recommendations on improving the communication in general.

Earlier in the day, Brüner met Bulgaria's Prosecutor-General Boris Velchev to discuss structural problems in the work of the prosecution and plans for centralization of the anti-fraud activities concerning EU funds. „We discussed structural changes in the work of the prosecution, as well as the need to centralize OLAF cases so that they are not examined one by one but as part of organized criminal activity", Velchev noted. „It is obvious that if there had been any difficulties in the communication with OLAF, it was our fault. We must communicate with OLAF according to its standards. I think that in the last months we found the correct way of communication and we will seek to improve it", Bulgaria's Prosecutor-General emphasized.