The Fiscal Council is talking about a 5.1% deficit if the current policies are continued. They report that the government is deliberately delaying the publication of data. But a 5.1% deficit is truly a missed and broken budget. And a very serious problem.
This was said on "Osche ut dne" on BNT by Martin Dimitrov from PP-DB.
He recalled that even the former Finance Minister from GERB Vladislav Goranov is talking about an even higher percentage deficit. So, he added - the situation is very serious. According to Dimitrov, the current government is making huge expenditures and is not stopping.
"I was also hoping that now that it is clear that public spending is in the red and this is what all analysts are telling them, that corrective measures would be taken immediately. But instead, the government, to our amazement, poured gasoline on the fire by proposing 5.5 billion leva of additional spending to be spent through the Bulgarian National Bank and the Bulgarian Energy Holding, which will not be counted in the deficit. This is the so-called spending below the line, which is cheating, circumvention.
According to him, everything possible must be done to prevent taxes and social security from increasing. And the government is "already preparing it." This is a public secret, he said.
"It is obvious that the government, on the one hand, does not publish data, and on the other hand, does not present a budget. When there are such huge unjustified expenses, it ends up being a Romanian scenario from recent years. Or, in a worse case scenario, a Greek scenario. All these problems are the government's problems. They have nothing to do with the eurozone and on the contrary, the eurozone and entering it will bring stability".
Another mistake, according to Dimitrov, is that a record debt is being taken on, which has not been taken on in the recent history of Bulgaria. 17 billion new loans have already been taken, he said. You have no right to blow the budget like that in a normal year, Dimitrov was categorical.
"If it depended on this government and this budget, we would not have entered the eurozone. But thank God it does not. There is a danger of an excessive deficit procedure".
The government is spending as if it could afford any deficit, Dimitrov added.