"The historic triumph of DARA is a cause for national pride. In any case, we will try to find the appropriate funding so that one of our major cities - Sofia, Varna, Plovdiv or Burgas, can host “Eurovision“ next year. The state could also provide funds through public-private partnerships, and part of the funding for preliminary activities could be included in this year's budget”. This was stated by the MP from “Progressive Bulgaria“ Stefan Belchev on the air of the program “Live Day“ on NOVA NEWS.
According to the MP, the budget procedure for 2026 has already started and will go through three stages. He expressed his expectation that the Ministry of Finance would submit the texts to the National Assembly by June 5, and that their final adoption would take place in early July.
Belchev was categorical that in the last five years the state's finances had been “hostage to pure conjunctural conformism” due to the frequent change of ministers.
“Given that on average each minister had a horizon of half a year, what serious changes, optimizations or cost cutting could be talked about? I am glad that Galab Donev put everything openly on the table”, noted Belchev.
Regarding people's incomes, he assured that salaries would not be reduced, but efforts would be made to eliminate automaticities in their increase. “In recent years, many salaries, especially in the security structures, as well as in senior government positions, were tied to the average salary. This is exactly what we will try to freeze legally. There must be justice in the entire system,” the MP explained, adding that this will also apply to the salaries of the MPs themselves.
The MP also drew attention to the extremely high salaries in state-owned enterprises and commercial companies. He gave the example of state hospitals that have millions of leva in losses, while their directors receive monthly salaries between 12 and 14 thousand leva.
According to Belchev, the ceiling of the new debt for this year should not exceed 3% of GDP, which in absolute terms is equal to about 10 billion leva.