With reference to the many inquiries regarding the new round of EEA and Norway Grants, the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Sofia would like to inform that on 17 June 2011 Norway signed two Memoranda of Understanding with Bulgaria on new financial contributions for the period 2009 – 2014. The agreements set the priorities of the funding and the institutional framework for grants management. A total of 126.6 million euro is earmarked to Bulgaria for projects in areas such as energy efficiency and renewable energy, green industry innovation, biodiversity, healthcare, children and youth at risk, cultural heritage, Schengen and the judiciary, civil society development.
Following the signing of the agreements, different thematic programmes will be established at national level. Each programme will have a programme operator – an organisation, which will prepare the programme documents, define detailed eligibility criteria, accept and select project proposals and monitor project implementation. Grants will be awarded to projects following calls for proposals that will be organised by the respective programme operators. The launch of the first calls for proposals is expected late in 2011 or early in 2012.
Please, note that the Embassy is not in a position to accept, evaluate or award grants to project proposals. This is a responsibility of the respective programme operator. Most of the programme operators are already selected and named in the annexes to the memoranda. However, some of the operators are still to be decided.
Detailed information regarding the new funding and the texts of the memoranda are published in the “Bulgaria” section of the official EEA and Norway Grants website www.eeagrants.org.
We also advise you to regularly consult the website of the Embassy (www.norvegia.bg) and the grants related information portal, administered by the Council of Ministers of Bulgaria (www.eufunds.bg). Information events on the new funding for Bulgaria will be organised in the autumn.
For more information you could also use the direct links below:
Information on the singing of the memoranda
Factsheet on EEA and Norway Grants - key areas of support 2009-14
Information and documentation on EEA and Norway Grants in Bulgaria (in English)
Information and documentation on EEA and Norway Grants 2009-2014 (in Bulgarian)