26.09.2014An extraordinary meeting of the Monitoring Committee of the Human Resources Developmet OP was held
New 30 million BGN will be used for subsidized employment within the popular among small and medium business operation "Support for Employment". Through them, employers could hire for six months over 5,000 of the most vulnerable among the registered unemployed people. With priority will be hired youngsters, people over 50 years of age and long-term unemployed, incl. unemployed Roma. Other 7.5 million BGN will be used to continue the "Personal Assistant" service for people with disabilities. Funding for this comes from savings made in other operations supported by the OP "Human Resources Development". At this stage, still unsolved stays the issue of the financing of full-time teaching arrangements in central schools, but it will be resolved in the next few weeks, so there is no interruption of day organization.
This became clear at the special meeting of the Monitoring Committee of OP "Human Resources Development", held on 19 September in Sofia. It was chaired by Petya Evtimova, Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Policy. The meeting was attended by representatives of the European Commission of intermediary bodies and institutions, involved in the implementation of the operational program, social partners and NGOs. The group of organizations working for Roma integration was presented by Deyan Kolev.
"The Operational Programme is not about institutions, it is for users and implementation of policies! It must reach the most vulnerable groups and to change their lives", emphasized in his speech Aurelio Cecilio, head of the "Romania, Bulgaria and Malta", General Directorate "Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion" of the European Commission. He criticized with unprecedented sharpness the institutions implementing major projects under the operational program for their lack of capacity, leading to delays and even non-achievement of certain operations, stressing that the next time the European Commission will not allow this to happen again. Mr. Cecilio repeatedly stressed that institutions ought to plan much better operations, pointing out that if they cannot use the appropriate EU funds to change lives of citizens, the European Commission can take these funds back.
The sharp observations of the representatives of the European Commission received indirect confirmation during the meeting at which changes were voted - in time or budgets – in 35 operations. Changes were made within the Operational Programme to enable the redirection of resources to priority axes 1 and 5.
Resources to the axes managed by IB Ministry of Education and Science were not redirected. At a question posed by Deyan Kolev, the Chief Director of General Directorate "Structural Funds" Ivan Modev explained that the budget for operation "Improving the quality of education in central schools by introducing day organization of the educational process" will be enough till November. In the coming days the Ministry will propose shifting of 10 million BGN in order to be provided full-time organization by the end of the year, then it will be secured by means of the state budget.
This caused a debate. The representative of the Teachers Syndicate "Podkrepa" Mr. Dimitrov shared the union position that day organization in central schools should be financed from the state budget. He was supported by the representative of the Roma organizations Deyan Kolev, who pointed out that this is a commitment required by the Education Act, which in 2008-10 was precisely funded from the state budget. "I appeal to the Ministry of Education to return back the day organization funding to the state budget, and the resources of the new operational program" Science and education ... " to be used for innovative activities," urged Kolev. The General Secretary of the Ministry Krasimir Valtchev confirmed that this will happen and by next year the state budget will support canteen and SBGs in central schools, and activities of interest will be included in the popular Project "SUCCESS".
Another issue that Deyan Kolev placed during the meeting was on operation "Support for Employment" to which 30 million BGN were allocated. "In 2013, within this popular operation was recruited less than 1% unemployed Roma, which is unacceptably low share. What would you do to change that in 2014-15?”, said Kolev. In response, the Executive Director of the Employment Agency Asen Angelov said that now is required preferential hiring of long-term unemployed, young people under the age of 29, unemployed over 50 and unemployed Roma.
The next regular meeting of the MC OPHRD is expected in November 2014 and it will probably be the last meeting of the Committee in this composition as probably in the beginning of 2015 new OPHRD will be approved and will be formed new Monitoring Committee . After the procedure, held in August, organizations, working for the integration of ethnic minorities and immigrants, designated as its representative in it Teodora Krumova (Center "AMALIPE") and as deputies - Mihail Mihaylov (Association "New Road"), Dr. Stefan Panaiotov (Association "Integro") and Gancho Iliev (NGO "World Without Borders")
New 30 million BGN will be used for subsidized employment within the popular among small and medium business operation "Support for Employment". Through them, employers could hire for six months over 5,000 of the most vulnerable among the registered unemployed people. With priority will be hired youngsters, people over 50 years of age and long-term unemployed, incl. unemployed Roma. Other 7.5 million BGN will be used to continue the "Personal Assistant" service for people with disabilities. Funding for this comes from savings made in other operations supported by the OP "Human Resources Development". At this stage, still unsolved stays the issue of the financing of full-time teaching arrangements in central schools, but it will be resolved in the next few weeks, so there is no interruption of day organization.
This became clear at the special meeting of the Monitoring Committee of OP "Human Resources Development", held on 19 September in Sofia. It was chaired by Petya Evtimova, Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Policy. The meeting was attended by representatives of the European Commission of intermediary bodies and institutions, involved in the implementation of the operational program, social partners and NGOs. The group of organizations working for Roma integration was presented by Deyan Kolev.
"The Operational Programme is not about institutions, it is for users and implementation of policies! It must reach the most vulnerable groups and to change their lives", emphasized in his speech Aurelio Cecilio, head of the "Romania, Bulgaria and Malta", General Directorate "Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion" of the European Commission. He criticized with unprecedented sharpness the institutions implementing major projects under the operational program for their lack of capacity, leading to delays and even non-achievement of certain operations, stressing that the next time the European Commission will not allow this to happen again. Mr. Cecilio repeatedly stressed that institutions ought to plan much better operations, pointing out that if they cannot use the appropriate EU funds to change lives of citizens, the European Commission can take these funds back.
The sharp observations of the representatives of the European Commission received indirect confirmation during the meeting at which changes were voted - in time or budgets – in 35 operations. Changes were made within the Operational Programme to enable the redirection of resources to priority axes 1 and 5.
Resources to the axes managed by IB Ministry of Education and Science were not redirected. At a question posed by Deyan Kolev, the Chief Director of General Directorate "Structural Funds" Ivan Modev explained that the budget for operation "Improving the quality of education in central schools by introducing day organization of the educational process" will be enough till November. In the coming days the Ministry will propose shifting of 10 million BGN in order to be provided full-time organization by the end of the year, then it will be secured by means of the state budget.
This caused a debate. The representative of the Teachers Syndicate "Podkrepa" Mr. Dimitrov shared the union position that day organization in central schools should be financed from the state budget. He was supported by the representative of the Roma organizations Deyan Kolev, who pointed out that this is a commitment required by the Education Act, which in 2008-10 was precisely funded from the state budget. "I appeal to the Ministry of Education to return back the day organization funding to the state budget, and the resources of the new operational program" Science and education ... " to be used for innovative activities," urged Kolev. The General Secretary of the Ministry Krasimir Valtchev confirmed that this will happen and by next year the state budget will support canteen and SBGs in central schools, and activities of interest will be included in the popular Project "SUCCESS".
Another issue that Deyan Kolev placed during the meeting was on operation "Support for Employment" to which 30 million BGN were allocated. "In 2013, within this popular operation was recruited less than 1% unemployed Roma, which is unacceptably low share. What would you do to change that in 2014-15?”, said Kolev. In response, the Executive Director of the Employment Agency Asen Angelov said that now is required preferential hiring of long-term unemployed, young people under the age of 29, unemployed over 50 and unemployed Roma.
The next regular meeting of the MC OPHRD is expected in November 2014 and it will probably be the last meeting of the Committee in this composition as probably in the beginning of 2015 new OPHRD will be approved and will be formed new Monitoring Committee . After the procedure, held in August, organizations, working for the integration of ethnic minorities and immigrants, designated as its representative in it Teodora Krumova (Center "AMALIPE") and as deputies - Mihail Mihaylov (Association "New Road"), Dr. Stefan Panaiotov (Association "Integro") and Gancho Iliev (NGO "World Without Borders")
