(SOFIA) - Bulgaria on Saturday drew up urgent measures to improve the management of EU subsidies and convince the European Commission to unblock over 800 million euros of frozen funds, government officials said.

"It is our ambition to react in an adequate way, with concrete action plans on all points of criticism in the European Commission report," Prime Minister Sergey Stanishev said after a meeting of the ruling centre-left coalition in the southern resort of Bansko.

"Whatever we do, all effort will be pointless without concrete results," he added.

Bulgaria's deputy premier for the use of European subsidies, Meglena Plugchieva, said that the government has formed a special working group of experts from different ministries in order to improve control over the use of EU money.

The European Commission confirmed this week in a report the freezing of a total of over 800 million euros (1.25 billion dollars) in farming, road and regional development aid for the EU newcomer over concerns of mismanagement and corruption.

Plugchieva said Saturday that the country would make every effort to convince the EU to unblock the funds by September and would seek help from EU experts in order to achieve this.

"It is of utmost importance now to restore Bulgaria's image and the confidence of our EU partners," pre-war monarch, post-communist prime minister and major coalition partner Simeon Saxe Coburg added.

Bulgaria joined the EU in 2007 but its failure to tackle high-level corruption and crime prompted the European Commission to closely survey the country ever since.

The last report from the EU's executive arm issued on June 23 was the harshest ever with regard to any EU member state, slamming Bulgaria over the slowness of its judiciary and the lack of sentences against major criminal bosses.

The Commission also threatened to strip the country of more money if it fails to come up to scratch and guarantee the proper use of EU funds.

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