We are ready to participate in supporting unpopular solutions that will return normality to fiscal conditions, as long as those in power have the courage to propose them.
This was stated to the Bulgarian National Radio by the "Magnitsky" sanctioned former Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov, MP from the GERB-SDF parliamentary group, stressed that it is good to see the EC's motives for monitoring Bulgaria prior to a possible excessive deficit procedure, because in their spring forecast they indicated expectations for a deficit of over 3% in 2026 and 2027:
"That is, it is not news that we have tension and risk in the budget. I would comment on the drama with which this news is being reported. The efforts of the government, which has extremely serious parliamentary support, should be focused on drawing up a budget within the 3% deficit and while maintaining taxes, which was repeatedly declared. There is something to be done. The announcement of a 10% reduction in personnel costs is good and meaningful, but why was the law enforcement agencies so quick to exclude it?".
Cutting capital expenditures is the worst thing in such a situation, because they are a source of growth, Vladislav Goranov pointed out.
According to him, everyone who has participated in the governance of the state since 2021 is to blame, because what is happening did not happen in one day:
"It is imperative to note the role of these finance ministers, for whom the National Assembly had to protect the treasury from them. Here I am referring to Assen Vassilev, who has a strange understanding of macroeconomics and fiscal policy, who was politically legitimized, however, by the then President Rumen Radev, who could not recognize his qualities in time, and was forced to call him a charlatan a year later.
Goranov agreed that the state budgets under governments with Finance Minister Assen Vassilev were implemented without exceeding the 3% deficit, which is the Maastricht criteria:
"As it is true that the budget for 2025 is at a 3.5% deficit and together with the derogation we have for military spending, it also complies with the criteria of the Stability and Growth Pact".
In his words, when during the protests against the government of Boyko Borisov in 2021, President Radev came out with a raised fist, this marked the beginning of the political crisis with a series of 8 parliamentary elections.
In the program "Nedelya 150" the GERB-SDF MP also commented on the case of illegal construction in the Baba Alino area near Varna:
"There are many documents on which a pre-trial investigation can work and find personal guilt. There is certainly personal guilt and it must come out. ... The case will be relatively easy, from the point of view of documenting and proving guilt".
GERB will not hinder the work on this case, it will even ask a parliamentary question once a month to the regional minister about the level of progress of the investigation into the case, he promised.
Goranov announced that he is in communication with the US government in connection with the sanctions imposed on him under the global "Magnitsky" law:
"The correspondence that I am conducting with the US Treasury Department is not closed. In this sense, the possibility of reconsidering my inclusion in the sanctions list remains. My thesis is that the reason why I am included in it, related to the gambling scandals of late 2019 and early 2020, is incorrect in terms of assessing my role and guilt. Therefore, I believe that I should be removed, but this depends on the American government, with whom we are in communication.