At the end of last week, there were talks between employer organizations and unions and some of the government regarding whether businesses should be compensated for high electricity prices.
Vasil Velev, chairman of the Management Board of the Association of Industrial Capital in Bulgaria (AIKB), commented on bTV on the connection between the formation of a regular cabinet and how this will affect business.
„It is important for us to form sustainable governance. In the last four years, many systems that were supposed to be reformed have actually broken down further and the state is not functioning optimally, which is also driving away business. You see, investments are falling to a historic low. Our country has lost competitiveness, economic freedom has lost ground, and the perception of corruption has increased," he said.
And he explained that our membership in the eurozone and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) should be priorities.
„We expect greater attention to be paid to the business climate, administrative reform, which will lead to a reduction in administrative burdens, we expect education to improve, things to change in the health sector, with an emphasis on prevention and the pension system to be repaired and rehabilitated,“, Velev said.
We recall that last week a protest was announced by employers and unions on January 15, if a mechanism to compensate for the record-high electricity prices for non-household consumers is not in place by then.
„We have held meetings with almost all parliamentary groups and actually have the support of "193 members of parliament. But this has not yet been realized, and even when such a mass national protest is organized, it is very difficult to stop it afterwards and one person or one organization cannot stop it," he said, specifying that by the end of the day both employers and unions will come up with a common position on whether there will be a protest on January 15 due to high electricity prices.
Vasil Velev also specified that this is not about aid, but about returning what was taken from business.