The Vice-President of BCCI Georgi Stoev and Beata Papazova, economic advisor, took part in the meeting at the Ministry of Education and Science dedicated to the interim evaluation of the “Horizon 20/20” Programme. Georgi Stoev raised the question of providing summarized statistics on the success of the programme and the planned events by the Ministry of Education and Science for the upcoming Bulgarian Presidency of the Council of the EU. According to the presented 1164-page report of the European Commission, Bulgaria ranks 24th among the 28 EU member-states and falls in the group of countries that have absorbed EUR 28 billion under the programme, of which Bulgaria used USD 46 million (out of EUR 8 million in the energy sector during the past period). Among the events planned by the Ministry of Education and Science for the Bulgarian Presidency in 2018, are the conferences on 12 March in Sofia and 21 June in Plovdiv, dedicated to the development of bio economy and of scientific-information structures. The Danube initiatives are another direction alongside the new financial instruments aimed to support SMEs in risk financing and under the “Horizon 20/20” Programme.
Among the most import priorities is the preparation for the 9th Framework Programme, which will take over the assets and liabilities of “Horizon 20/20” in the next programming period after 2020.