"Development of Regions" will be the name of the new operational programme for regional development

10 large and 40 medium-sized municipalities in the country will be direct beneficiaries of the programme

"Development of Regions" will be the name of the new operational programme for regional policy, which will be managed by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works in the next programming period 2021-2027.

This was announced by the Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Public Works and Head of the Managing Authority of the OPDR Denitsa Nikolova, who took part in the Meeting of the Board of the National Association of Municipalities in the Republic of Bulgaria and the Mayors of the ten largest Bulgarian municipalities.

The exact budget of the programme is not yet clear, but it is expected to exceed BGN 3.1 billion, which will be used to achieve balanced regional development of the country under three priority axes, including integrated urban development, integrated regional development and technical assistance. 

Deputy Minister Nikolova presented to the mayors the scope of the new Operational Programme and the draft versions of the Partnership Agreement for the new programming period.

"The Commission appreciates Bulgaria's new integrated territorial approach to the management of future EU funds, which focuses on policies for the development of regions and cities," Nikolova said and explained that the new operational programme will have two main priorities - for integrated urban development and for integrated territorial development.  Priority 1 targets 10 large municipalities - Vidin, Pleven, Ruse, Veliko Tarnovo, Varna, Burgas, Stara Zagora, Plovdiv, Sofia and Blagoevgrad. They are divided into 4 clusters - by level 2 regions and taking into account the functional links between them. For each of the clusters based on 4 indicators - population, territory, GDP and infrastructure, a percentage of the resource will be allocated.  30% of the budget of each cluster will be for participation of urban municipalities in the integrated territorial approach with smaller municipalities.  

The municipal administrations of the 10 cities will be territorial authorities, Nikolova added.  They will have Project Selection Units, formed by municipal experts with the possibility of attracting external expertise.  They will carry out information and publicity activities - public discussions and public support for the projects, as well as their preliminary selection.

Large municipalities will have 3 opportunities to apply with projects.  The first one is on its own or in partnership with municipal stakeholders.  The second is in partnerships between municipalities in the respective cluster or in partnerships of cluster stakeholders.  The third will be partnerships between beneficiaries of the two priorities of the programme - small and large municipalities.   

Priority 2 for integrated territorial development will cover 40 urban municipalities from the 6 Level 2 regions with more than 15 000 inhabitants.  Again based on 4 criteria, each of the regions will have a separate regional budget. 52% of the budget will be for Northern Bulgaria.  52% of the budget will be for Northern Bulgaria. The guiding principle in the selection of projects for funding under the new territorial approaches will be their contribution to the economic development of the territory, said Deputy Minister Nikolova.  A bottom-up approach will be applied in the selection of projects. 

The integrated dDevelopment plans of the municipality, the Integrated plans for urban restoration and development and the Urban mobility plan will be the strategic documents for access to EU funds and the implementation of integrated investments under the new OPDR, it became clear at the meeting. 

The Regional Development Councils will play the role of a territorial body and will be entrusted with the competence to assess the relevance of project concepts and ideas to the identified development priorities of the specific region at level 2.

In the words of Deputy Minister Nikolova, a challenge in the next programming period will be the proposal of the EC to implement the projects within 2 years from the signing of the contract.  This requires a very good preliminary preparation of the beneficiaries who must have ready projects in order to be able to start their implementation quickly", said the Deputy Regional Minister.