Пандемията от КОВИД-19 - нова заплаха за изоставащите региони в България
The COVID-19 Pandemic – a New Threat to Less Developed regions in Bulgaria

Author(s): Mariela Savkova
Subject(s): Economy, National Economy, Socio-Economic Research
Published by: Университет за национално и световно стопанство (УНСС)
Keywords: European Union; Cohesion; Europeanization; Regionalism; Regional Disparities; Integrated Territorial Investments
Summary/Abstract: Bulgaria's fifteen-year experience in the EU shows that our country achieves slower cohesion than other member-states from Central and Eastern Europe, and besides between less and more developed regions, internally. With the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a new threat for deepening the regional disparities in Bulgaria, and complementary expanding the gap in the quality of health care and access to education of children from vulnerable groups between regions of Bulgaria. Today, the European Union faces other challenges such as external hybrid attacks, BREXIT, refugee flows, and humanitarian emergencies from the military conflicts in the Middle East and most recently from the invasion of Russia in Ukraine. To address these issues in 2020, in addition to the existing European opportunities, the member-states have created two new funds, and one instrument for the management of migration, visa regime, and internal security of the EU. Further, they have allocated funds from the current Multiannual financial framework and the "Next Generation EU" package to provide financing for the new instrument REACT-EU to overcome the negative impact of the consequences of COVID-19. Bulgaria seeks to use these financial opportunities by implementing a new Integrated Territorial Investments (ITI) approach to reduce the regional inequalities in access to quality public services and economic opportunities for the population living in the less developed regions. The current report evaluates the subject of COVID-19 concerning the upcoming regionalization of the European programs in Bulgaria and their effectiveness in diminishing the negative consequences of the pandemic in Bulgarian regions.

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