From October 8, the imposition of effective sanctions will begin with regard to traders who do not comply with the provisions of the Law on the Introduction of the Euro in the Republic of Bulgaria. The adaptation period, during which the institutions only issue prescriptions, ends. Joint inspections of the CPC and the NRA regarding law enforcement also start. This became clear during the meeting of the Euro Mechanism convened by Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov.
Companies that, in the absence of economic prerequisites, and currently none exist, unreasonably raise their prices are subject to sanctions, Prime Minister Zhelyazkov recalled.
The Prime Minister also pointed out that, according to the provisions of the law, all 256 identified retailers of food, beverages and medicines with a turnover for the previous year of over 10 million leva are obliged to publish on their pages daily in machine-readable format information about the prices of the goods offered from the composition of the large consumer basket.
The goal is for the information to be analyzed through the platform “Kolko struv“ (Kolkostruva.bg). We count on their cooperation in the implementation of the law, Zhelyazkov also pointed out.
Monitoring of price levels will be based on criteria - economic prerequisites or justification, and in order to have such, it is necessary to change the structural components of the price. These are, for example, electricity, wages, fuels, social payments and other costs of companies. In the absence of such pricing changes, any price dynamics will be treated as unreasonably rising, added Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov.
I believe that the market currently has enough mechanisms and a sufficiently correct attitude towards consumers so that the euro is not attributed to price increases where there are no economic prerequisites for this, added the Prime Minister.
Tomorrow, the National Assembly is due to consider the amendments to the Law on Protection of Competition, which are related to the sectoral analyses in the “Food“ sector, which are carried out by the CPC. We trust in the expediency of the national representatives, as the issues related to the normal functioning of the market and with regard to sanctioning unfair trade practices and distortion of competition will be taken into account, especially in view of the upcoming months, which will politically pressure the topic of the so-called price increase, added Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov.