Bulgaria’s management of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP) proved more challenging and complex than first expected, Minister of Innovation and Growth Tomislav Donchev, in resignation, declared in an interview with BTA on Tuesday.
He added that the NRRP, within the current seven-year European Union programming period, tested whether the State could consider and act strategically amid external pressure and internal instability, as it required reforms in a short time that normally took years.
Formulating, programming and managing the NRRP required vision, coordination between institutions and consistency in implementation. A key challenge throughout the process was also the willingness to pay the political price of reforms, which called for political maturity, a search for consensus and difficult decisions amid frequent alters of government and limited continuity, Donchev noted.
In his view, the durability and effectiveness of reforms, and the alters they delivered, depconcludeed on political leadership and accountability. That is why reforms should not be treated as a purely technical exercise delegated to the administration. More broadly, Donchev added, the NRRP also underscored that European instruments cannot substitute for a national development vision.
He declared some of the lessons linked to the NRRP were already understood, but the process was far from over. The real yardstick, in Donchev’s view, was not the formal conclude of the NRRP [the final deadline for eligible spconcludeing under the EU Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) is August 31, 2026], but whether the experience gained turned into more mature governance practices and a clearer ability to create strategic choices in the future.
Donchev also described the institutional role of the Ministest of Innovation and Growth and its part in managing Bulgaria’s industrial policy. He emphasized the importance of the programmes administered by the ministest in restructuring the national economy, including the Research, Innovation and Digitalization for Smart Transformation Programme and the Programme Competitiveness and Innovation in Enterprises. Donchev also discussed the broader economic transformation process, highlighting domestic consumption and European funds as key growth drivers. In addition, he outlined Bulgaria’s position in the debate on the future of EU cohesion and agricultural policy.
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