Professional training and education: participation of Bulgaria to Leonardo and Socrates programmes

PURPOSE: within the framework of the preaccession strategy, opening the Socrates and Leonardo da Vinci programmes to Bulgaria throughout their remaining lifetime, i.e. 1999. CONTENT: the draft Decision of the EC-Bulgaria Association Council sets out the terms and conditions for the participation of Bulgaria in the Community programme in the field of vocational training and education, as follows: - Subject to certain specific exceptions detailed in the proposal, Bulgaria shall participate in all the relevant actions, under the same terms and conditions as the Member States; - In order to guarantee the Community dimension of the programme, Bulgaria will be required to include a minimum number of partners from among the Member States for any transnational actions and projects it proposes; - Bulgaria will pay an annual contribution to the general budget of the EU to cover the cost of its participation in the programmes. This contribution will cover subsidies or any other financial support from the programmes to Bulgarian participation, financial support for the functioning of Bulgaria's national LEONARDO agency and supplementary costs related to the Commission's management of the programmes stemming from Bulgaria's participation (around 6.5%). Bulgaria's contribution for participating in the entire programmes (i.e. 1999) will be as follows: - ECU 1,114,000 for Leonardo da Vinci; - ECU 4,140,000 for Socrates. Subject to regular PHARE programming procedures, PHARE will make a maximum contribution of ECU 1,011,000 towards Bulgaria's participation in Leonardo da Vinci and ECU 3,754,000 towards its participation in Socrates, the remainder being covered by Bulgaria's national budget. Bulgaria is required to make every effort to ensure the free movement and residence of those persons benefitting from the programmes. Bulgaria shall participate in the monitoring of its own participation in the programmes, by participating in coordination meetings on any question concerning the implementation of this Decision prior to the regular meetings of the Committees. The Commission will inform Bulgaria about the results of such regular meetings.�