The non-governmental sector should occupy its due place in the EU pre-accession programmes, announced Minister Cerovski at the National working meeting…

The non-governmental sector should occupy its due place in the EU pre-accession programmes, announced Minister Cerovski at the National working meeting “The participation of the citizen’s society of Bulgaria in the EU pre-accession programmes and the preparation of the country for participation in the European structural and cohesion funds”, which was held in Plovdiv on 5 April 2004. The forum was organized on the occasion of a visit by a delegation of the European Economic and Social Committee to Bulgaria and a session of the Joint Consultative Committee EU-Bulgaria. The invitation for participation was extended by the former and by the current co-chairman of the Committee - respectively Mr. Bozhidar Danev, Chairman of the Bulgarian Industrial Chamber, and Dr. Zheliazko Hristov, Chairman of the Confederation of the Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria /CITUB/. Experts from the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works also took part in the meeting. The non-governmental organizations /NPOs/ can be both beneficiaries and consultants, both in the programming and monitoring process, particularly in the PHARE Programme, and NPOs members can also participate as experts in the guiding committees, underlined Minister Cerovski. He emphasized that the role of the third sector is especially important in distribution of information as well as in the process of training with respect to the absorption of EU pre-accession funds. There are two major problems which we have to solve as a society – the construction of the administrative and institutional capacity, and afterwards we have to apply in practice the vertical and horizontal coordination for the whole process, announced Minister Valentin Cerovski. Photo: Ljubomir Datsov – Deputy Minister of Finance, Dr. Zheliazko Hristov, Chairman of the CITUB, Minister Valentin Cerovski, and Bozhidar Danev, Chairman of the Bulgarian Industrial Chamber, during the meeting PR & International Relations Directorate