Sofia was apparently warned that pre-accession funding may be halted as far back as the end of 2007.

And while the lack of an adequate response to that warning continues to baffle the European Commission, the Bulgarian authorities are playing down the problem, dismissing it merely as an 'insufficiently effective communication.'

In an interview for local channel Nova TV, president Georgi Parvanov Sunday urged greater oversight and complete transparency, including the online posting of all EU-funded projects.

The European executive, however, is adamant that not communication but the crackdown on corruption and other objectionable practices is most important.

Dnevnik has learned that the enlargement directorate of the commission sent in November and December 2007 warning letters to the Bulgarian finance ministry to draw attention to the same irregularities in the spending of EU funding that later were officially blamed for the decision to suspend it.

Sources from the Bulgarian executive said off the record, that different directorates of the finance ministry had indeed received several letters, two of which remained unanswered.

The funding freeze is expected to top the agenda for the March 28 visit to Bulgaria of commission president Jose Barroso which the commission spokesperson said was not definitively confirmed.

The talk of a Barroso visit started after last Friday's meeting at Olaf, the EU anti-fraud office, of Bulgarian finance minister Plamen Oresharski and EU affairs minister Gergana Grancharova. Olaf is investigating the spending of Sofia's SAPARD allocations.

The Olaf meeting was requested after Bulgarian prime minister Sergei Stanishev also picked up on the 'communication problems' between the Bulgarian and EU authorities.

Neither the suspected 7.5 mln euro in SAPARD scams nor any other concrete issues were discussed with Olaf, said Oresharski after the meeting. The topic was rather 'the interaction framework and what can be done to improve it.

Source: http://news.dnevnik.bg/