Topical Information

On November 8 (Friday), a meeting of the NAMRB'S Standing Committee on European and National Funds, Mechanisms and Instruments for the term 2023-2027 was held in the city of Sofia. More than 64 representatives from 37 municipalities announced their participation in the meeting.

"For another term, the Standing Committee on European funds is the most numerous in the Association. Initially, 213 members from 117 municipalities and 11 regions of the Capital Municipality and Plovdiv Municipality participated. After the addition of the composition in September, the Commission reached about 250 people, to whom we say "Welcome to the large municipal Euronetwork"!, announced at the opening of the meeting the Chairman of the Commission and Mayor of Peshtera Municipality Yordan Mladenov, who was also the moderator of the event.

The meeting began with a view to the implementation of the municipal projects under the National Recovery and Sustainability Plan (NRSP).

Veselka Ivanova, the head of the "Municipal Programs and Projects" department at the NSORB and secretary of the Commission, summarized the news and current initiatives under the Plan for the last weeks.

On November 6, the Ministry of Health published draft Guidelines for applications for the construction of outpatient clinics in hard-to-reach and remote areas. The financing under the PVU is worth a little over BGN 13 million.

Two procedures are expected by the Ministry of Culture and the National Fund for Culture (NFK) - to support the cultural programs of large and small municipalities. The application guidelines were discussed at a joint meeting between the Committee on Culture and on European and National Funds, Mechanisms and Instruments, and the opinion of the National Council of the Ministry of Education and Culture was provided to the ministry.

At the beginning of October, the first meeting of the 2022 Expert Advisory Council on the National Environmental Protection Agency, whose function is to monitor the implementation of the Plan, was held.

In October, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) also published a second version of the Management and Control System of the NPVU. It also includes the measures for prevention, detection and correction of cases of conflict of interest, corruption, fraud and double financing, recovery of illegally obtained funds from the final recipients. The system is built to ensure the functioning of a predictable and stable internal control environment for the implementation of the Plan.

NSORB conducts a survey among municipalities regarding their readiness to announce public procurement under the "Support for sustainable energy renovation of the housing stock" procedure. At the moment, feedback has been received from 42 municipalities, appealing to other administrations to also join the survey.

The Secretary of the Commission informed the representatives of the municipalities with the conclusions of the analysis of the NSORB on the implementation of the municipal projects under the NPVU, prepared on the basis of the public data in ISUN 2020 as of October 31, 2024.

From 2022 So far, 14 procedures for the recruitment of projects with a total value of 3.65 billion have been announced for municipalities. BGN The announcement of another 4 is expected. In the short period, the municipalities have prepared and submitted 4,215 projects (as much as for the entire program period for all European programs), which shows how motivated the local authorities are as beneficiaries.

The deposited municipal projects have a total value of 6.4 billion. BGN with a requested grant of 6.27 billion BGN or with own participation by the municipalities of more than 132 mln. BGN The requested BFP for the submitted projects exceeds by about 1.7 times the budget available under the procedures. Municipal projects approved for financing are 3,920, which makes the success rate 94%.

183 municipalities have concluded 632 contracts with a total value of 1.45 billion. BGN with a BFP value of 1.37 billion BGN and co-financing of 87 mln. BGN The low number of contracts concluded by the municipalities is the result of the too long assessment and the still unstarted negotiation of three procedures - two for the EE of the residential buildings and one for the energy-efficient street lighting. According to them, more than 1,040 projects for about 1.3 billion should be agreed upon. BGN With the addition of the completed at the end of m. October 2024 and the suspended procedure for social services, the total value of future contracting will be almost 2 billion. BGN

According to the analysis of NSORB, the processes of evaluation and negotiation of the projects take too long a period - from 7 to over 15 months. Estimates show that all projects agreed after the first quarter of 2025 will be at risk of implementation. The administrative capacity at all levels for their subsequent implementation is also in question.

Elena Stoeva, chairman of the Board of Directors of "Green Balkans - Stara Zagora" joined the discussion on the topic of the protection of protected species during the implementation of the projects under the procedure "Support for sustainable energy renovation of the residential building stock - STAGE I" by NPVU.

When carrying out the activities under the procedure, according to the Biodiversity Act, it is necessary during project preparation to inspect the sites for the presence of endangered species - bats, swallows and swifts in the buildings, as well as for their protection during the subsequent SRM. The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has provided local authorities with information on good practices, including a Methodology for surveying during building renovations (See more: HERE). During the founding meeting of the Commission in June, the topic was placed among the important priorities on which it will work during the current municipal mandate.

The regulations on the subject should be provided by the ministries, but there are still many unanswered questions and I think that the experience of "Green Balkans" will benefit the local authorities, Elena Stoeva said to the members of the Commission and told about the "Wild Neighbors" campaign of the organization. The campaign aims not only to inform the community about the problem and the placement of nests and houses to compensate for the destruction of their shelters, but also to work together with the municipalities to protect the protected species affected in the remediation.

In addition to being legal, their protection has a direct economic connection, since these species are completely insectivorous - this means that they control pests in agriculture and forestry, Elena Stoeva said, and gave the example of the population of mosquitoes and the pine processionary, which is completely regulated by bats . In many countries, the disappearance of protected species has far greater economic consequences than the effort and investment in their conservation beforehand, she added.

In the discussion after the panel, specific problems from the municipalities and open questions related to the implementation of the projects under the NPVU were raised and commented on. Cases were highlighted with the lack of effective correspondence and feedback from the central administration, the setting of too short deadlines for correcting municipal projects, as well as the implementation of projects in terms of the formation of their teams.

In line with energy street lighting, the members of the Commission united around the decision of NSORB to send a letter to the Ministries of Energy and Finance, with a copy to the Administration of the Council of Ministers, which has competences for the overall coordination of the NPVU, with an insistence on providing Guidelines for the implementation of the projects and activation of payments on them.

The topic of the coordination and coherence of the Programs supporting the ITI approach was raised during the second panel of the meeting, and the discussion was attended by Tatiana Angelchova and Gergana Tsenova, representatives of the Managing Authority (MA) of the Regional Development Program (RDP) 2021-2027 .

The Secretary of the Commission, Veselka Ivanova, informed the attendees that on October 18, in accordance with the Law on the Management of Funds from the European Funds under Shared Management (ZUSEFSU), the Management Board of the PRR provided the leading applicants with approved CITIs with a draft of Application Guidelines under the "Support for integrated urban development in 40 urban municipalities'. The deadline for submission of opinions and notes was until October 24, and the NSORB is not among the addressees of the correspondence regarding the draft of the Guidelines.

The procedure is aimed at the implementation of the approved Concepts for Integrated Territorial Investments (IITs), which provide for financing from the RDP. Eligible candidates are associations of an applicant - a lead partner of an approved CITI and partners implementing activities under RDP in an approved CITI, who submit one project proposal.

After getting acquainted with the project provided to the candidates, the NSORB summarized the opinions of the municipalities on the proposed texts. The main remarks of the Association concern mainly the insufficient time for proposals and comments on the voluminous documentation, as well as the need for more publicity and transparency in the discussion, by including all interested municipalities and the NAMRB.

The municipalities also inform about the lack of clarity when applying with KITI for the subsequent requirements under Phase 2, as well as the lack of coordination and synchrony between the individual procedures under the Programs supporting the ITI approach.

Representatives of the Managing Authority (MA) of the Regional Development Program (RDP) stated that the MA took into account the views of the municipalities in the Application Guidelines.

Specific questions were asked by the participants, covering advance payments, the need for more clarity when changing partners, admissibility of expenses for organization and management of activities, etc.

On November 8, the Guidelines for applying under the direct grant procedure "Support for integrated urban development in 40 urban municipalities" of the "Regional Development" Program 2021-2027 (RDP) were published in ISUN 2020. 

Artificial intelligence will not replace humans at this stage, but it can make our work much easier and more efficient. We can achieve more successes and not miss opportunities, said the deputy mayor of the Sofia Municipality for European policies, international activities and tourism, Nikola Barbutov, who together with his colleague, the deputy mayor for digitalization Ivan Goichev, presented the capital's experience in implementing Chat GPT in administrative processes and the optimization of procedures.

The project was implemented under the "Sandbox for Innovative Solutions" initiative, launched in the fall of 2020 and part of the Action Plan for the implementation of the Digital Transformation Strategy of Sofia (SDTS).

A team in the municipality monitors and supplements the database for up-to-date information on programs with European funding. The goal is that if a municipal expert needs information on financing a certain service, they will have a chat agent to advise them on potential opportunities.

Interest was aroused by the presentation of the deputy mayors on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in real time through examples - funding of a social service in Lovech, construction of a sports ground in Peshtera, etc.

When using AI solutions, they must be confirmed by a person, Ivan Goichev reminded the EU regulation on its use.