The co-chairman of the PP-DB parliamentary group Nikolay Denkov called on BNT for an expert debate on the 2025 budget.
"Let me give three examples to show that the budget is not black and white. I do not want to get into an argument, just to show that there is a reason and it should be discussed. "Kozloduy" NPP - we have heard it several times as an example of the need to allocate additional funds. Over the past 2 years, 1.5 billion leva have been poured into the so-called new capacities, which are responsible for the new reactors of Kozloduy. And by the end of this year, they will not use more than 500 million leva. That is, you have 1 billion leva more there, invested in the accounts of this company. So, when discussing the arguments for taking these 7 billion leva, we want to see point by point what the word is about. This is one of the reasons why we know that there may be arguments, but there may not be."
Denkov also commented on Temenuzhka Petkova's statement that Asen Vassilev had neglected to read the draft budgets of individual ministries, looking for something to criticize in the state's budget plan.
"Secondly, you are talking about program budgets. I looked at the program budget for science and education. Where there was 100 and a little million leva last year, the year before, the year before, for the scientific research strategy, there are zeros. It is probably in the Central Budget, but how can the Minister of Education and Science know how much it is, when it will be allocated to him, because, I am telling you now and I am ready to sign that if we are one day late after the adoption of the budget, the Scientific Research Fund will not be able to hold its competitions. And this has happened in the past.
That is why we want these 100 million leva to be there, so that from day 1 the Scientific Research Fund can start announcing its competitions. Third, you say that Assen Vassilev took the money from the energy sector. But he returned it to the Bulgarian business. And you are using the same thing, 100% taken from the dividend, something that you criticized him for all the time, precisely to feed the Energy Security Fund. That is why I say, I do not want to argue right now that this expert debate should be held. And this is coming."