Minister Lilyana Pavlova: The European commission allocates 18 million BGN for the expropriation procedures of the North Speed Tangent.

‘The good news is that we have the assurance of the European commission that we are able to obtain about 18 million BGN under Operational Programme ‘Regional Development’ to execute the expropriation procedures along the road-bed of the upcoming North Speed Tangent.’ That declared the Minister of the Regional Development and Public Works, Lilyana Pavlova, during the XV-th session of the Monitoring committee of Operational Programme “Regional Development” 2007-2013, held in Plovdiv. “25 million BGN from the state budget have been provided for expropriations on the project and that measure is a  breath of fresh air”, explained the Minister of Regional Development and Public Works. Lilyana Pavlova announced to the Committee that it is possible the suspended funds under Operational Program ‘Regional Development’ to be partly restored till the end of the month and then completely in January, the following year. Analyses of the Managing Authority of OPRD team show that under the program there are 25 projects of high risk, currently with total value of 370 million BGN. For this reason a list of additional projects totaling 280 million BGN is considered to be prepared. These projects are ready and funds from the program could be redirected to them so that they could be implemented instead of the identified risk projects. Thus the European funding would not be lost.