Minister Nikolov: Bulgaria has not received funds from the Modernization Fund so far, because it did not have a representative there

So far, Bulgaria has not received funds from the Modernization Fund of the European Union, as our country had not appointed a representative in the Investment Committee of the fund. This was supposed to happen in 2020, but it was not done until October 2021. Only at the end of July this year, at the initiative of the Ministry of Energy, the Council of Ministers decided to designate the agency as the structure responsible for selection of projects for activities under the Modernization Fund. This was answered by the Minister of Energy Alexander Nikolov when asked why Bulgaria has not yet received funds from the fund.

BTA reminds that a day ago the press service of the European Commission announced that eight EU beneficiary countries received a total of 898.43 million euros in the first year of operation of the EU Modernization Fund, but our country is not among them. Investments in the Czech Republic (EUR 320 million), Estonia (EUR 24.59 million), Croatia (EUR 2.15 million), Hungary (EUR 34.28 million), Lithuania (EUR 28 million) have already been confirmed. , Poland (€ 346.40 million), Romania (€ 22.99 million) and Slovakia (€ 120 million).

The current team of the Ministry of Energy is working actively to make up for the accumulated delay and to propose funding for projects for the next cycle in 2022, added Minister Nikolov. At the moment, the work on a draft act of the Council of Ministers is in an advanced phase, which will determine the criteria and conditions for selection of projects for funding from the fund.

It is also important to note that each country has a certain quota of funds in the fund, so the funds provided for our country will not be lost, said the Minister of Energy. For Bulgaria, the quota is 5.84 percent of the total financial resource, he said.

The EU Modernization Fund was set up to support a total of ten lower-income countries in their transition to carbon neutrality and achieving the 2030 climate targets. The fund is financed by revenues from carbon trading. The beneficiary countries of the fund are Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania and Slovakia, the energy ministry said.

The first payments were made in August 2021, when the fund financed a total of six investment proposals from the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland, reminded by the Ministry of Energy.