Almost a quarter of all farmers who submitted applications last year for subsidies under the conditional support scheme did not receive the money because of attempted fraud. This was announced by Vasil Grudev, Executive Director of the State Fund Agriculture at a joint briefing with Minister of Agriculture and Food Desislava Taneva.

The briefing came in response to a video posted online, of a conversation between Minister Desislava Taneva and fruit and vegetable producers, in which she advises them to adhere to the claim that there are no instances of established fraud under the conditional support scheme, so that the funding from Brussels will not be stopped.

Desislava Taneva was categorical that her words have been taken out of context and that, in practice, there is absolutely no way not to notify the European Commission of the checks and violations. Only after the EC receives this information does it allow the Agriculture Fund to make payments under the scheme.

Desislava Taneva stated that the attack against her was motivated by political interests and added that it could jeopardize the receipt of conditional support over the next programming period.

Earlier today the press centre of the Agriculture Ministry issued an announcement stressing that the ministry has regularly informed the European Commission of the results of all checks carried out of European schemes in Bulgaria financed by national and European funding.