PM Borissov has sent this week 4 ministers to Brussels with the mission “to do their best to save what cannot be saved”. Mission impossible, as it turned out. The premier himself admitted that the ministers came back with bad news. Those were Vice Premier and Minister on EU Funds Management Tomislav Donchev, Transport Minister Ivaylo Moskovsky, of regional development – Lilyana Pavlova and Environmental Minister Evelina Vassileva. The four musketeers had to beg for the return of over EUR 460 mln., paid with national budget money under the operational programmes and also for the reduction of the expected loss of funding to the tune of EUR 145 – 205 mln. by the end of the year. Deputy PM Donchev explained that the state hoped to get prolongation of the funds’ absorption due to the floods and the numerous appeals of the procedures that had delayed the execution of EU projects. At the same time both he and Minister Pavlova declared that 2014 would be a zero year, or a year, lost to EU funds. However, not only the year is lost. According to Pavlova the overall feeling was for a lost of trust by Brussels, regarding Bulgaria and its institutions, as far as its capabilities to cope with EU funds’ issues was concerned. That minor mood remained even after the meeting of the four with Bulgarian EU Commissioner on Budget and Human Resources Kristalina Georgieva. In her words they discussed “how more EU money to enter Bulgarian economy more quickly”. How? It will be tough, obviously. As the EU money recovering problem, concerning Bulgaria is related to a problem of Georgieva herself – the hole in the European budget. The issue with the unpaid bills, transferred by the EU from year to year remains unsolved, reaching EUR 20 bln. now, as an agreement on the EU 2015 budget hasn’t been reached yet. Georgieva announced that a new budget would be proposed over the next days, worked together with the EP and the member-states, in order for consent to be reached before the end of the year. Otherwise expenses will be restricted to 1/12 of the current monthly budget, till the reaching of an agreement. In such case we will have to look more at our backyard and not at the European one, tidying it with our own efforts.  Or even Tom Cruise won’t be able to handle it. Mission impossible!