Institutional Defi ciencies in the Implementation of the PHARE Preaccession Program for Civil Society Development in Bulgaria

Abstract

The article focuses on the EU PHARE pre-accession programme for Civil Society Development in Bulgaria as a key precondition to develop a capacity in civil society to manage EU structural funds and be a partner and actor in EU policy- making. Rather than being an agent of institutional change, the programme implementation confronts informal constraints and institutional resistance that leads to distortions in the initial objectives and in the expected outcomes. The text illustrates defi ciencies in civil society development in Bulgaria through analysis of the programme administrative design and defects in implementation. The article explores how the regulations and specifi c instructions of PHARE on civil society development are interpreted and perceived by the different actors of the Bulgarian public administration involved and the benefi ciary NGOs. The over-centralised institutional setting of the programme combined with mismanagement results in diverse and inconsistent performance, strategic defi ciencies, and delivery shortfalls.