[...] The person with the big promises is Asen Gagauzov*. The year is 2006.

Now it is 2009. And the highways are nowhere to be seen. However, Gagauzov remains a minister. Even though Brussels froze all funds intended for roadwork, he refused to resign, saying: "Life is stronger than any Phare and any ISPAs." [Note: ISPA = Instrument for Structural Policies for Pre-Accession; ISPA, Phare and Sapard are financial instruments to assist the candidate countries in the preparation for EU accession] The scandal with the former director of the road fund, hired by Gagauzov, Veselin Georgiev, still resounds in the European institutions and courts of law. But Gagauzov is still in charge of the tax-payers' money. Now he has a new stimulus - to fight the crisis with golf investments.

These days Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev's failed minister improved his own cheekiness record by stating that Bulgaria does not need European money for highway Trakia. And he insisted that the two fraudulent auctions be brought to an end despite Brussels' opposition, because otherwise a lot of time would be lost. Or in other words, he urged for the lots to be assigned to "local" firms (listed name by name by him a while ago.) Let's remind that it is Gagauzov's fault that almost three years of fruitless attempts to renegotiate the concession assigned by the government of Simeon II were lost. The rumors then had it that the Portuguese [company that had won the auction] gave up because of a contractual condition specifying which Bulgarian firms to be the subcontractors.

*Asen Gagauzov is a Bulgarian politician and Minister of the Regional Development since 2005.

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