Ivaylo Mirchev showed on the programme “120 Minutes” a document he presented as the original of a letter sent by Finance Minister Galab Donev to the European Commission on 2 November 2026. According to the co-chairman of Yes, Bulgaria, it contains a proposal to temporarily redirect part of the pension contributions from the second to the first pillar of the system.
“Part of the contributions, but this amounts to nearly 1 billion euros a year. 3% in 2027–2028 and 2% in 2029. This is an official letter from Mr Galab Donev to the European Commission,” Mirchev said on bTV. He clarified that this did not involve transferring all the funds, but rather part of the contribution paid into universal pension funds.
Mirchev also showed the last page of the document, which bears Galab Donev’s signature. “This is the original of the letter that was sent on 2 November,” he said in response to a question about whether the document published by the Ministry of Finance had been edited.
The dispute concerns two letters with the same date
According to Mirchev, following Bozhidar Bozhanov’s public reaction on 3 November, the Ministry of Finance prepared a second letter with the same date but different content. The disputed paragraph about redirecting part of the contributions from the second pension pillar to the National Social Security Institute was missing from it.
Mirchev said that the second document had been created on 3 November at 6:59 p.m., which, according to him, could be seen from the metadata of the file published by the European Commission. He also claimed that both letters had been registered in the Ministry of Finance’s document management system.
“There is a second letter, subsequently containing changed data and changed content. And clearly the Ministry of Finance is lying,” Ivaylo Mirchev said.The Ministry of Finance rejected the claims of an impending reform of the second pension pillar. On 7 November, Galab Donev said that his official proposal to the European Commission of 2 November contained no proposal to redirect funds from the second pension pillar to the National Social Security Institute. According to him, such a measure was also not included in the draft 2027 State Budget Act.
“My official proposal to the European Commission of 2 November 2026, published on the Commission’s website, contains no proposal to redirect funds from the Second Pension Pillar to the National Social Security Institute,” Donev said, as quoted by Darik.
Mirchev demanded the finance minister’s resignation
During the television interview, Mirchev demanded Galab Donev’s resignation and said that the institutions had given contradictory explanations about the letter. He announced that the document he had shown in the studio would be distributed to the media after the programme ended.
“It is time for your third letter, dated today, to Prime Minister Rumen Radev. With just one sentence: ‘I hereby resign as finance minister’”, Mirchev said, addressing Donev.
At present, the dispute remains focused on whether two versions of a letter bearing the same number and date were sent to the European Commission, and which of them was received first. Yes, Bulgaria insists that the original files, the exact times of dispatch and the data from the document registers be made public.
Source: btvnovinite.bg