The Tripartite Cooperation Council will discuss the parameters of the "Budget 2026".
The draft laws for the budgets of the Health Fund, the Social Insurance Institution and the state budget have met with sharp criticism from unions, employers and opposition parties, because the consolidated fiscal program is calculated with a deficit of 5.7% of the gross domestic product, which is approximately 7.2 billion euros. It is expected that the newly incurred debt by the end of the year will exceed 10 billion euros.
The first reactions to the draft budget were negative. On the part of employers, due to the increase in the maximum insurance threshold to 2,300 euros and the vignettes by 30 percent from August 1.
"These are funds that were not foreseen by the enterprises and must be paid now. We believe that this increase, which was shared by 5%, is actually at least 12.6% for the lowest incomes for the minimum thresholds and reaches over 70% for management positions,", stated Stanislav Popdonchev from the Bulgarian Industrial Chamber.
For their part, the unions had a different reading. Lyuboslav Kostov from the Confederation of Bulgarian Trade Unions:
"We are pleased that they are raising the maximum social security income, although it could have been higher, since the growth of the maximum social security income currently does not correspond to the growth of the average social security income. But insofar as this is a budget for 5 months, we hope that for the "2027" budget from September we will be talking about a change in taxes, about raising the dividend tax. A cleaning lady on a minimum wage pays more taxes and social security contributions as a percentage of her salary than an entrepreneur with a 20,000 euro salary."
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Galab Donev, in several television interviews over the weekend, tried to defend the budget plan, in which, as promised, salaries of some management positions would be reduced, turned out differently:
"What is currently being noticed as a difference in remuneration is a technical error that has already been fixed."
According to Donev, this is the realistic budget, and we will see the first real policies next year.
However, the medium-term macro framework also envisages a deficit of over 3 percent in 2027, and the state's debt will grow to over 35% of gross domestic product in 2028.
The first protest against the government took place on Saturday, precisely because of the budget policies. They caused the "Zhelyazkov" cabinet to resign.