Kristalina Georgieva

BRUSSELS - Serbia's Deputy Prime Minister and Public Administration Minister Kori Udovicki said after meeting with senior officials of the European Commission (EC) in Brussels Friday that the EU was willing to technically and financially support the reform of the public administration in Serbia.

Commissioner Kristalina Georgieva said reforms in Bulgaria were needed in the felds of electronic government, healthcare, education and most of all the judiciary.

'EU surveys show that "96 per cent of Bulgarians do not trust completely their judiciary", she noted. ''Seeing this, I asked myself who are the other 4 per cent? They must be judges."

The European Commissioner for the Budget and Human Resources Kristalina Georgieva has warned that Bulgaria should not wait to implement critical reforms in order to take advantage of the economic and social opportunities that EU funding provides. She also noted the importance of the reforms in the light of Europe slowly coming out of the economic crisis.

The national holiday of Bulgaria - Liberation Day, which is celebrated on March 3, will be marked in the European Commission.

Under the initiative of Commission Vice-President Kristalina Georgieva, Bulgarian dishes will be served in the canteen of the Commission, private bTV station reports.

The European Commission has notified Bulgaria that payments under operational program Regional Development 2007-2013 can now restart.

The payments were temporarily suspended so as to guarantee the efficiency of control systems.

Bulgarian authorities have received an official letter about the move, according to the EC press office.

The EC approved on Thursday the Operational Programme Good Governance, which foresees the allocation of EUR 336 M for improving the public administration and transparency of the judiciary in Bulgaria.

The majority of the funds (EUR 286 M) will be provided by the EU budget through the European Social Fund (ESF) for the 2014-2020 programme period.

Gallup International presented a survey on the first 100 days in office of the second Boiko Borisov government on Tuesday.

The majority of people (56%) interviewed in February said that they do not trust the government.

Voting is nearing its end in the "Personalities in the News" 2014 poll, organized Bulgaria's largest English-language news website Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) our Bulgarian-language service Novinite.bg.

Apart from transporting and distributing gas, Bulgaria could become an exporter of energy resources, the country's Prime Minister Boyko Borisov said after meeting EU officials on Monday.

Borisov held talks in Brussels with EU Commissioner Corina Cre?u, who is in charge of regional development, and the Commission' Vice President for Budget and Human Resources Kristalina Georgieva.

Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov is due to meet EU Commission Vice President Maro? ?ef?ovi? on Monday, the government's press office has said.

The abandoned South Stream gas project, Bulgaria's alternatives to guarantee energy security, and its effort to put forward a gas hub project as a substitute to the scrapped pipeline are to top the two politicians' agenda.