Parliament has ratified two agreements between the government and the European Investment Fund that govern the JEREMIE initiative in Bulgaria. Lawmakers voted twice in the same sitting and passed both agreements. These are the fifth amendment to the framework agreement and the fifth amendment to the financial agreement. The council of ministers put forward the bill.
Innovation and digital transformation minister Ivan Vasilev told MPs why another change is needed. The reason is decree No. 56, issued by the council of ministers in 2026, which sets out how to spend money returned under the financial instrument of the "Initiative for SMEs" operational programme for 2014-2020, now that the deadline for claiming eligible costs has passed. The ratification also ties in with the decision to hand management of that money — 48,353,532 euros in total — to the European Investment Fund, the minister said.
The plan is for that sum, together with the recycled funds built up over the years through JEREMIE's financial instruments, to reach Bulgarian small and medium-sized businesses again under an updated investment strategy. The strategy's budget runs up to 180 million euros, Vasilev said. The money will go into four areas:
- funds for business growth;
- funds for technology transfer and deep tech;
- the infrastructure fund of the Three Seas Initiative;
- defence funds.
The council of ministers submitted the bill. It states that ratification makes the two agreements legally binding. This clears the way for the updated investment strategy to go ahead, and for the returned money to be managed and reinvested to support small and medium-sized businesses.
Minister Vasilev added that ratifying the agreements does not require any extra money from the state budget.