Tens of promises for changes, hundreds of errors, countless missed opportunities and finally… nothing new in Bulgaria. Absolutely nothing new. Only light glossing over of things. Grants from Brussels 2020 will be provided under almost the same rules as before – accompanied by numerous discrepancies, paperwork and uncertainties. If you were expecting something else – you lose your bet. At least, this is what was revealed by the recent government decree which determines the order of receipt of funds from the Structural and Cohesion Funds.
Although the Government Information Service announced how they were accelerating the processes of applying for EU money, the document itself does not raise any hopes. True, the first article of the law states that “in the application, granting and reporting of grants the managing authority may not require applicants (beneficiaries) to present information and documents that are available to the body or another primary data controller and it shall provide these documents automatically.” But a little the text further includes a long list of circumstances for which it is expressly stated that are only proved by official documents issued by the competent authority or certified copies thereof. For some of the data even notary-certified documents will be needed. What acceleration of procedures then can we talk about here?
Moreover, after the publication of the call for project selection, the guidelines for applicants can vary for a number of different reasons. These include changes in regulations in the amount of funding, etc., including factual or technical errors. All this will inevitably play a practical joke on beneficiaries who anyway find it difficult to understand the “strict” administrative language in the guidelines, let alone be able to quickly respond to any adjustments.
The Government argues that the development of the instrument has reflected the experience gained during the previous programming period and there have been new provisions for optimizing and minimizing the excessive administrative burden. Something may indeed be recognized as reported, but nothing has changed in practice. The grants will still be provided under the rules of the so-called selection of projects and direct funding procedures which namely have been creating the biggest problems so far. Thousands of good business proposals remain in the reserve lists exactly because of these selection criteria. A number of municipalities have obtained money for treatment plants and sewerage system through the direct provision and will now have to return sizable amounts for mistakes they have done.
An interesting detail is that the original plan had set a third option for funding – through the budget lines, but in the final version of the decree it is missing. This approach provides for a simplified procedure for application by the direct beneficiaries of operational programmes and can be used for the priority axes for technical assistance.
The Government is trying to convince people also that clear deadlines for each stage of the process of project evaluation were introduced, but such a thing is not noticeable. This de facto means that the process will continue to flow with its current pace. Administration will be given as much as 90 days for the evaluation of the proposals submitted, and if the submitted offers are over 500, the time becomes 120 days. On top of that the text does not explicitly specify whether these are working days, although this is of paramount importance. At the same time periods affecting candidates are extremely short. To provide all additional and supplementary documents companies are given five working days, provided that most of them are issued by those same officials, and then – within a week. Five days will be given to candidates to make a written objection to the decision for rejection of their projects. Just for comparison – the managing authority of the programme receives a full 10 days for the simple task of informing the participants in the procedure. Which of the two is more complex and requires more time everyone can see. But obviously this is the level of misunderstanding of simple truths among bureaucrats.
One of the few important news is that spending on operational programmes introduces minimum quality requirements for all proposals. Thus, in the event that a technical evaluation of projects for funding is carried out, all or part of them will be approved (according to the available funds), whose final score is greater than or equal to 60 percent of the maximum possible. In other words, even if there is enough money in a scheme, candidates who got positive but lower scores will not receive funding.
Another adjustment is the option to simplify the application in procedures in which the maximum amount of the grant is up to 100,000 levs inclusive. In these cases, government authorities may not carry out technical evaluation and the deadline for getting the project will not exceed 30 working days. There is also an option, the application and evaluation of project proposals to be made electronically through the Information System for Management and Monitoring.
Soon are to be adopted order conditions for selection of contractors by the beneficiaries. But according to the text published for public discussion it will bring a big change, either. On the contrary – instead of burden relief in some cases new administrative barriers are being introduced. For example, the required minimum turnover of candidates for the implementation of a project can be up to three times larger than the estimated value of the contract. The restrictive condition seems rather odd against the proposed by the same government amendments to the Law on Public Procurement, which cancels the corrupt practice of ejection small businesses from the game. Not to mention that the rules of the previous programming period did not contain such a requirement.
Nonetheless, officials have strictly adopted the method of “copy/paste” for most other provisions. Because of this their zeal an e-tendering option for the candidates is entirely absent, and the only possible way remains the good old sealed envelope.
The BANKER
