Deputy Minister Denitsa Nikolova: In the future, we aim the regional development councils to manage the EU funds in their entire cycle

Mayor of Burgas Dimitar Nikolov is the new chairman of the Regional Council for Development of the Southeast Region, the deputy chairman is the mayor of Stara Zagora Zhivko Todorov  

Approval of the integrated territorial development strategy, direct participation in its management, coordination, monitoring of its implementation and reporting on the effects of its implementation are among the responsibilities of the newly formed Regional Development Council of the South-East Planning Region.  The most important role is related to its direct involvement in the selection of investment projects to be implemented through combined EU funding from the different operational programmes, with the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works playing the main coordinating role and the Operational Programme for Regional Development taking the lead.  The other operational programmes will also contribute to the development of the region with their budgets.

This was commented by the Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Head of the Managing Authority of OP "Regions in Growth" 2014-2020. Denitsa Nikolova at the opening of the first meeting of the new Regional Development Council. "Your main role will be to carry out the selection process in a way that we select the most important and significant investments for the territory of the south-eastern region," she stressed.  During the meeting, the Mayor of Burgas, Mr. Dimitar Nikolov, was elected as the Chairman of the Regional Council and the Mayor of Stara Zagora, Mr. Zhivko Todorov, was elected as the Vice-Chairman.

The Regional Development Council will be directly involved in issuing letters of support for any investment it intends to apply for and be funded under the CBC programmes.  In this way we will achieve the complementary effect of the investment process, we will be able to make synchrony between the national financial instruments available to us in terms of European funding and the territorial ones related to cross-border and transnational cooperation, Nikolova added.

The Deputy Minister expressed his confidence that with joint efforts, we will move in a direction where in the future the Regional Councils will be able to manage the funds in their entire cycle in the longer term, and not to limit their functions mainly to the re-selection process, as currently envisaged.

The main goals we have set ourselves are to create vibrant and economically strong and sustainable regions, tackle negative demographic trends, increase economic growth, and promote territorial development in a way that balances the development of different territories, the deputy regional minister added.

Denitsa Nikolova recalled that unity has been reached regarding the need to think not only in an individual approach to the investment process on the territory of the country, but to work in a complex integrated model with joint partnership and cooperation not only of the central administration and local authorities, but also with the involvement of more and more stakeholders in the face of the non-governmental sector, economic operators, as well as to rely more and more on the active participation of citizens in the selection of priority investments.

We have structured a new model for the implementation of the investment process at territorial level - the implementation of measures in an integrated way through so-called integrated territorial investments. This is a transition to the new programming period, which will focus on specific features of the territory and the creation of preconditions for partnerships that will have an impact and influence on it, so that we can achieve economic growth.  

Through the partnerships that we will try to direct in the direction of choosing the best investments, we will show that together we can think about others, Deputy Minister Nikolova further said.