This is good news if they get their finger out and get the work done before it goes into someones pension fund

EC Urges Bulgaria to Reform Water Infrastructure
The European Commission has requested from Bulgarian an urgent action plan for reform in the water infrastructure sector.

The EC Director-General Regional Policy, Dirk Ahner, has sent a letter to Bulgaria's Minister on Regional Development, Rosen Plevneliev, and the Bulgarian Environment Minister, Nona Karadzhova, stating that Bulgaria is lagging behind in reforming its water sector.

The absorption of over EUR 1,5 B of EU funds on water project by 2013 depends on the reform of the water sector.

In order to resume the financing, in the summer of 2009, Bulgaria adopted a Water Act and created regional water associations, which own the water supply and sewage infrastructure and give it for management to water supply and sewage companies.

This was an attempt to solve the problem with the ownership of the networks, divided between the state, municipalities and private companies. As trading holdings, the current operators of the water supply and sewage cannot apply for EU financing.

The Bulgarian Minister on EU Funds, Tomislav Donchev, has stated that Brussels is insisting on a specific plan with measures and deadlines.

In his words, the government will inform the EC that the Environment Ministry is preparing a strategy and that a map for the development of the water supply and sewage sector has already been completed. It is coordinated between the ministries, regional governments, municipalities and operators.

One of the goals of the strategy is the unified management of the waters, which is currently divided among five ministries.

In its answer to Brussels, the Bulgarian government has put January 1, 2011 as a deadline for creation of the water associations. According to Donchev, the deadline would not be a problem because 22 of them have already been established.