The proposed budget for 2025 should not pass, but at the same time it should not remain in limbo.
This was stated to the Bulgarian National Radio by Georgi Kadiev from "Normalna avgava", former Deputy Minister of Finance.
According to him, the budget should enter the plenary hall. "I would vote against it if I were there, and so the Ministry of Finance would be forced to prepare a new budget", he explained and added that the deputies do not have the right to propose a new budget, but can only make changes to it
According to him, the ministry is right that in the expenditure part of the budget they are simply following the policies set out in previous years in laws that have already been adopted by the National Assembly, but according to him they can propose measures in the revenue part. They proposed, but they very quickly abandoned them, Kadiev reminded and specified:
"The increased gambling tax rate was dropped. Is gambling so important to Bulgaria that they suddenly lobbied to drop this thing? They very quickly abandoned the tax on excess profits of banks. I would even expand it to a tax on excess profits for telecoms, arms companies, and in general for a bunch of sectors that have increased their profits in recent years due to the situation. Banks had 800 million leva in profit in 2020, and now they have 3.4 billion. Of course, you can take an additional tax from them. They gave up a tax on mining companies. The only measure that remains, which is the most controversial - amnesty. You can't predict how much revenue will come from there. The vast majority of these companies that have declared liabilities and have not paid and now want amnesty are shell companies created specifically for this purpose.
According to him, what is currently being done is only to cut the capital program, and thus the state is freezing. He also believes that the increase in the Ministry of Interior and Defense cannot happen from January 1st and this will lead to protests.
From now on, the validity of the old budget can be extended by a decision of the parliament, the financier said in an interview for the program "Predi visi". But he warned that the problems that arise are enormous:
"The country is in complete chaos - we have no government, we have no budget, we have no revenues, and on top of that we are trumpeting how we will enter the eurozone almost at any moment, which is absurd".
One of the criteria for entering the eurozone is to have stable inflation, and not just to meet the criterion for 1-2 months, Kadiev specified and was categorical:
"There is no chance of us entering the eurozone. There is no chance of them making this extraordinary report. Second - we do not meet the conditions. Even if we meet the conditions for a month or two, that is not enough. Third - political chaos plays its role".
"We can do all kinds of tricks and numbers and maybe we will manage to deceive them somehow, but the truth is that we are not ready for the eurozone. Neither our banking system is ready, nor the Bulgarian National Bank is ready, there is no government, nor are our institutions working. Why have we rushed so hard towards this eurozone and are explaining how our deficit will be 3%", he continued his comment and asked further:
"Where are we heading towards the eurozone, with the shadow economy being 1/3 of our entire economy".
Regarding the idea of merging the National Revenue Agency and Customs, Georgi Kadiev expressed his opinion that the purpose of this is to fully control the National Revenue Agency. The NRA and the Customs are fundamentally different in structure, composition, and the laws they operate under, he explained, and pointed out the only thing they have in common - that they collect money.
"This is a favorite trick of every minister - to create a new structure and change the entire composition, but this leads to many problems".
We are obviously heading towards elections, I don't understand why we should postpone any longer, Georgi Kadiev wonders.
"We are flying to the bottom and very quickly", the financier concluded and emphasized that people must understand that the responsibility is theirs and depends on who they vote for in the elections.
According to him, there should be elections after elections after elections, "until all this dirty money flows out