The payments which Bulgaria was due to receive under Phare and which were recently suspended by the European Commission, stand at 50 million euro, Bulgarian Deputy Finance Minister Dimiter Ivanovski said Thursday. 36 million of these are for programs managed by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works and 14 million are for Finance Ministry-managed programs.

The suspension was announced by the European Commission in a letter to the Finance Ministry on February 29 and concerns all projects managed by the Finance Ministry's Central Unit for Financing and Negotiation and the Executive Agency for Phare with the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, BTA reports.

An expert meeting has been scheduled for the week between March 17 and 21 in Brussels, where the Bulgarian side will have a chance to present its position. Ivanovski commented that he does not believe a final decision to have been taken in respect of any of the issues identified by the European Commission.

Commenting the payment suspension, Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said Thursday that detailed information is expected before the end of next week from the two ministry units in respect of the criticism from the European Commission. He also said that "these are not corruption accusations but specific cases, flaws or difficulties".

After the talks with the Commission, the Finance Minister will brief the government on the measures that need to be taken, Stanishev added.