“Our country is constantly changing, and mostly for the good. There are still imperfections – we were never the perfect country – but our direction is definitely towards betterment,” said the prime minister of Bulgaria Sergei Stanishev for Nova TV.

“Sometimes we are slow with our decisions. We are still learning as a country – member of the European Union,” added Stanishev.

“During it’s first year of membership, each new country in the European Union can’t absorb funds properly due to purely technical reasons,” noted the prime minister.

“We did well in that part. Then we saw that we have issues with the technical application of the funds. Bulgaria started with lower levels of direct funding from the EU. The program “Development of the rural regions” is successful in Bulgaria,” said Stanishev. “The money of the European Union are given for a period of seven years, so we will see the final results of our efforts in 2013”, concluded he.