European Commission (EC) officially approved Bulgaria’s Operational Programme "Good Governance" (OPGG) for the implementation of the European Social Fund (ESF) in the period 2014-2020, which outlines the priorities and objectives to invest nearly EUR 336 million (of which EUR 286 million from the EU budget) to help modernise the public administration and transparency of the judiciary in Bulgaria, it was announced on Thursday.
Investments will address challenges related to the efficiency of the administrations in providing quality, fast and affordable services for all groups of society.
The programme has two overall goals:
Modernising Public Administration
• Around EUR 118 million are dedicated to reduce administrative and regulatory burden on citizens and business. This programme is the key funding instrument to support the improvement of the overall transparency and accountability of civil service and the functioning of public procurement systems.
• The programme also focuses on e-government as an instrument to enhance administrative processes and reduce costs. Improving services will contribute significantly to social cohesion through targeted measures aimed at increasing the digital competences of the population and overcoming the digital divide. In addition to horizontal e-government systems, particular attention will be paid to implement sectoral systems such as e-procurement, e-health and e-customs.
Improving the quality, independence and efficiency of the judiciary
• Another EUR 30 million will fund measures to increase transparency and accelerate judicial proceedings through structural, procedural and organisational reforms in the judiciary; to improve the accessibility and the accountability of the judiciary through the introduction of e-justice, and to extend the scope and improve the quality of training in the judicial system.
• A dedicated funding of EUR 62 million will finance the horizontal structures responsible for the management and implementation of the European Structural and Investment Funds and the improvement of beneficiaries' capacity, as well as the effective functioning of Unified Management Information System.
Over the funding period, around 100 administrations will be supported to introduce complex administrative service delivery and 144 administrations will introduce quality management systems. The programme is expected to train some 175 000 state administration employees and 25 000 magistrates, court officials, officials of the investigating authorities. 20 municipal services will be supported for standardization and some 850 e-services will be developed at the level of transaction. Around 250 000 judicial cases are expected to be managed electronically.
***
The EC approved OP Science and Education for Intelligent Growth, which will be financed with EU resources in the 2014 – 2020 programme period, the press service of the Bulgarian Government announced on Thursday.
OP Science and Education for Intelligent Growth will function in Bulgaria for the first time. Over EUR 701 million will be used under it to solve the most pressing problems in the Bulgarian education sector. The investments under this programme will be focused on increasing the quality offered in the Bulgarian education sector according to businesses’ needs of qualified cadres. Modernisation and improvement of conditions at educational and scientific establishments as well as the development of potential for conducting scientific research and for innovations aimed at the fields of specialisation under the Strategy for Smart Specialisation will be a priority of the programme.
It was announced on Thursday the EC also approved Bulgaria’s OP Good Governance.
The end of negotiations on the 2 new programmes is another step towards the final approval of the entire package of financial instruments with European financing, which will operate in Bulgaria by 2020. At the end of last year the EC approved 2 operational programmes in the new programme period – OP Human Resource Development with a budget totalling over EUR 1 billion and OP Transport and Transport Infrastructure with a budget of nearly EUR 2 billion. The approval of the future OP Innovations and Competitiveness is expected in the weeks to come.
