SPECIFIC MARKETING COMPLEX IN THE SPHERE OF EU FUNDING IN BULGARIA

Abstract

Following the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union a number of new obligations for the country have been arisen but also new opportunities for public and corporate project funding have been opened.The government of the country has developed seven operational programs, operating within the period from 2007 to 2013, through which the public and private sectors were able to benefit from funding various initiatives through European financial instruments. In the current 2014-2020 programming period seven operational programs are active again, their scope being changed in comparison to the previous period on the basis of the performed analyses of the implementation and for greater expediency.As a new and modern phenomenon in the Bulgarian economic practice, the operational programs have been of interest to the researches of a number of Bulgarian scientists. Some of them go beyond their bounds and focus on the overall European integration at the supranational level. Others examine the effect of our national operational programs on the national economy. There are also scientists focusing on the microeconomic effect from the program implementation in relation to individual business units.In spite of the serious scientific interest in the opportunities for EU funding there is not enough work in Bulgaria concerning the relations between the programs and their beneficiaries.Despite some differences between them, the completed operational programs and the active operational programs have similarities in regard to their attitudes to their end users – the beneficiaries. In this regard, we can examine EU funding, channeled through the seven programs, from a marketing aspect.In this paper we will pay attention to a specific product offered to the beneficiaries, then we will consider the price paid for it, we will examine the channels through which this product reaches its end users and will study the communication channels for connection with them.The four elements of the marketing complex related to the EU funding through the operational programs differ significantly from the elements related to traditional products. They are strictly specific and the main purpose of the paper is to demonstrate these differences but also to characterize them.As a subject of the paper, the specific elements of the marketing mix in the sphere of EU funding can be pointed out through the mechanisms of the developed operational programs.The main object of the paper are the active operational programs in the current programming period in Bulgaria as well as the programs of the previous programming period in our country.