Employers, Incumbent Discuss Opportunities under Juncker Plan

The Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria (KRIB) Monday organized a conference on the subject of "The Juncker Plan - Opportunities and Results". Representatives of European institutions have also been invited to participate.

Speaking at the forum, outgoing Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev said Bulgaria's primary task is to learn how to use European funds from financial engineering. 

Donchev pointed out that there will be European funding and cohesion policy after 2020, but it definitely will not look like the current one. The Deputy PM forecast that if the share of funding designated to the financial engineering instruments amounts to 10 per cent of the entire financial framework, in the next programming period it will be at least one-fourth.

Financial instruments are like soft drugs and do not generate the bad dependence grants create for business, thus outgoing Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov jokingly described the future significance they have for the EU and Bulgaria specifically.

Goranov spoke about the different pillars of the investment plan for Europe. To date, the first pillar includes four financial intermediaries in Bulgaria who have contracts under the European Investment Fund for SMEs and companies with medium market capitalization for credits to small and medium-sized enterprises with more favourable conditions.

 

 

BTA