The Council of Ministers decided to allocate up to 100 million leva on the off-budget account of the National Fund under the Minister of Finance to finance payments under Phare projects, the Government Information Service said Thursday.

The projects concerned are covered by the 2005 and 2006 Phare Financing Agreements, the Phare Cross-Border Cooperation Programs with Greece and Romania, the Phare Neighborhood Programs with Macedonia, Serbia and Montenegro, and Turkey, and the Transition Facility.

The projects include rehabilitation of the Yambol-Elhovo and Chepelare-Sokolovtsi roads, construction of a ring road, improvement of traffic safety on the Doupnitsa-Koulata road etc. Other projects are for an integrated grant scheme for sustainable development through water protection and conservation, improvement the flooding forecasting capacity in the Maritsa basin, modernization of the Bulgarian police, Border Police capacity building, and building a TETRA digital radio communication system.

The Government allowed the Phare Program authorizing officers at the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works to conclude contracts under projects which are at an advanced stage of contracting, have tender procedures underway, or can be contracted by November 30.

"The contracting, payments and all project implementation procedures will follow the Phare Program rules," the press release says. "The financing for the payments come from savings of expenditures and/or from overcollection of revenues on the executive budget for 2008."

"If the European Commission re-accredits the Central Financing and Contracting Unit at the Ministry of Finance and of the Phare Program Implementing Agency at the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, part of the payments which are recognized as eligible expenditure will be restored by the European Commission and will accordingly be credited in revenue to the executive budget," the Government Information Service said.

Source: BTA