My colleague from the Netherlands has just called me and said that the government has expressed agreement for Bulgaria to join Schengen. There follows a procedure in their parliament, but even if there is no agreement, the government may not comply. This was announced by acting Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev before today's meeting of the Council of Ministers.
„Step by step we are getting closer to the date of December 12th. We made visits to three checkpoints with all the structures involved in the reorganization that will have to be done at the borders with Romania and Greece upon our eventual acceptance. We also created an Operational Headquarters with Minister Ilkov and Minister Koritarova. We think we will be ready on January 1st for the new way of crossing. On the Romanian border, control will be maintained, but not as it is now. It is estimated that the benefits will be around 1.6 billion. BGN in all areas. On December 2, when the new EC took office, I spoke with its president – Ursula von der Leyen, and we exchanged greetings. She congratulated us on the good selection and the good candidacy we gave for European Commissioner in the person of Ekaterina Zaharieva, he added.
„ Smallpox outbreaks in small ruminants have been destroyed. In Yambol, the compensations have even been paid, the others are left to do the same. The money is earmarked and available. However, this is with the cooperation of the owners. The picture in the plague outbreak in Velingrad is quite different. The talks continue there. Minister Takhov continues the talks, various options are being sought, incl. and an unprecedented third sample to be sure. The benefits are planned and ready to be paid, but the bad thing is that there is a political element. If this outbreak is not controlled, it poses a danger to everyone around. If they agree to such a thing, I think the state should not agree. "No extreme measures are envisaged," the prime minister explained.
He also announced “the icing on the cake” – the budget: “I don't know why politicians should call us to submit a budget. I never said that we will not submit a budget, we were even ready to submit it on October 31. If we had submitted it then, however, firstly, that the 50th National Assembly did not have a meeting then, nor the 51st. We have submitted 12 bills to the 51st National Assembly, some of them are tax laws. We will introduce a budget with 3% deficit parameters to continue our bid for the Eurozone. There will be no increase in basic tax rates in the main tax laws. Incomes are expected to increase as promised – in the Ministry of Defense, in the Ministry of the Interior.“
„ About pensions – the covid supplement will continue to be included, they will also be updated according to the swiss rule. The Ministry of Finance is making calculations on how to pay BGN 100. Christmas supplements to pensions. Funds are also planned to fill the “hole” in the budget. The budget is adopted in the National Assembly, it is the will of the people's representatives. When we see that the three percent deficit framework is threatened, we will withdraw it. Today we will adopt a decision to grant nearly 95 million BGN disaster relief – hail, fires, floods. We will also adopt a decree for allocating funds according to the proposals of the Ministry of Health for the children's hospital in Burgas, added the Prime Minister.
At the end, he again called on the National Assembly to elect a president and form a regular government.