site.btaCouncil of Ministers' Decisions

At its weekly meeting here on Wednesday, the Council of Ministers transacted business as follows:

• appointed Deputy Prime Minister for Good Governance Kalina Konstantinova as Chair of the Central Commission for Combatting Anti-Social Behavior of Minors with the Council of Ministers;
• approved the draft Interreg VI-A Romania-Bulgaria 2021-2027 Cross-border Cooperation Programme with a total budget of 207.5 million euro, co-funded by the European Union. The programme will fund joint projects under four regional priorities: connectivity, enhanced green development, enhanced education and integrated regional development. Eight Bulgarian regions have access to over 207 million euro for development under this programme;
• approved the contents of and Bulgaria’s commitments as a party to the Interreg VI-A IPA Bulgaria-North Macedonia 2021-2027 programme. With an indicative budget of 31,152,400 euro, the programme will fund projects under three priorities: conservation and biodiversity, connectivity, and integrated social and economic development;
• agreed that Antoaneta Baicheva be relieved of her duties as Bulgarian Consul General in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, with consular district covering the provinces of Hessen, Rheinland-Pfalz, Saarland and North Rhine-Westphalia;
• approved the allocation of 600,000 leva for the launch of a research programme for mathematicians with a total budget of 2 million leva. The programme is to continue until 2025;
• approved an additional 10 million leva for the Education Ministry budget this year, to be spent for repairs and furniture in student halls of residence in 2022. In September 2020, the then government extended 66 million leva for the same purpose and 700,000 leva were used the same year and 26,152,209 leva in 2021;
• approved the allocation of 14,674,888 leva for risk prevention, emergency repairs and overcoming disasters;
• approved and moved for ratification by the National Assembly the Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Shifting signed on June 7, 2017;
• approved a programme for cooperation with Poland in the field of culture, education and sports for 2022-2025;
• approved Bulgaria’s accession to the OECD LEED Programme (Action Programme for Local Employment and Economic Development) as an Associate Member in the Directing Committee;
• approved a draft ordinance on determining the national energy efficiency target, the total cumulative target and the energy saving scheme and their distribution between obligated parties. Nearly 51,000 GWh of electric power are expected to be saved in Bulgaria by 2030;
• approved a bill of amendments to the Public Offering of Securities Act introducing measures for the application of Regulation (EU) 2020/1503 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 7 October 2020 on European crowdfunding service providers for business, and Directive (EU) 2021/338 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 February 2021 amending Directive 2014/65/EU as regards information requirements, product governance and position limits, and Directives 2013/36/EU and (EU) 2019/878 as regards their application to investment firms, to help the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis;
• approved additional transfers to the amount of 3.8 million leva to the budgets of municipalities for 2022 to offset the reduced tax receipts from taxi service providers;
• approved a draft agreement between Bulgaria and Romania for the establishment of a border checkpoint at the Ruse-Giurgiu ferry service for passengers and vehicles transferred by ship between the two cities. The resumption of the ferry service was agreed at the meeting between Deputy Prime Minister and Regional Development Minister Grozdan Karadjov and Romanian Deputy Prime Minister and Transport Minister Sorin Grindeanu on January 28, 2022;
• approved additional costs in the 2022 budget of State Fund Agriculture to the amount of 32 million leva in support of dairy farmers, shepherds, beekeepers, fruit and vegetable producers, as well as rose and rice producers.