Water drought
Brussels stopped the 1.5 billion Euro funding for the Water supply and Sewerage sector because of the undergoing dispute of two ministries
Do you remember where Korten village is? Vine-growing center, a few kilometers north from Nova Zagora, with nearly 1900 population. The village received 25 million Levs to fix its sewerage. Free of charge Europeans. At the same time, far bigger villages are waiting to receive smaller funds but this won’t happen soon. The lack of general plan for investment in the Water supply and Sewerage networks and the confusion with the legislation forced the EC to stop 1.5 billion Euros under the “Environment” functioning program. The blame for stopping the funding should be taken by the Ministry of Environment and Water, which rushed to sign projects for millions and at the same time, forgot the necessary normative changes for the sector.
At the end of February the deputy prime minister Meglena Plugchieva has received a letter from the vice-director of the GD “Regional policy” Dirk Anner.It is said in the letter that the Ministry of Environment and Water should stop signing contracts for projects in the water sector under the “Environment” functional program.On a business meeting this Thursday the European experts confirmed their position-the process should be suspended until the issue with the ownership of the Water supply and Sewerage networks gets its legislative solution.At the moment the diverse property of the Water supply and Sewerage association does not make good preconditions for the entering of private investment in the sector, when the money from the program is gone, said participants from the meeting.
Among the reasons for the EC decision is the lack of guarantees from the environmental ministry for effective acquisition of the funds.The experts from Brussels think that the planning of the projects should be on regional level not local because the small municipalities don’t have the capacity to...