The political puzzle has begun to fall into place - tomorrow, Head of State Rumen Radev is expected to hand over the first governing mandate to GERB-SDF. Will they manage to form a working cabinet with the support of the BSP, ITN and Ahmed Dogan's MRF? Economists Prof. Garabed Minasyan and Georgi Ganev gave their comments on the subject on bTV.
„I still have a poor imagination of how an economic budget can be put together. If it happens, it will be very interesting to observe how both some budgetary discipline will be observed, which the people from GERB are very much betting on, and some loosening will occur, which the BSP insists on“, said Georgi Ganev.
„I am sad that there is not a single serious economist in this entire parliament. And in this composition of the government - I have not been able to see anyone to whom we can vote confidence as a thinking economist. The matter is not only in the budget, as my colleague Ganev mentioned, but it is generally about implementing a quality economic policy“, said Prof. Minasyan.
And he defined the economic policy in our country in recent years as unstable and without prospects:
„Over the past 10 years, our economic policy, if we can even speak of such a policy, is on the verge of irresponsibility. There is fighting day after day. There is no perspective, no vision for the future. How long will we be in the back of the European Union? This is a personal insult to me“.
One of the issues that could potentially be problematic in a GERB-BSP coalition is the eurozone. GERB and their economists insist that it is important now, while there is a window, to enter the eurozone, while the BSP excludes our rapid accession as an option.
„The BSP's position is that they are „in principle „for“Bulgaria's accession to the eurozone“, but they believe that we are not sufficiently prepared to do so in the short term. But if GERB manages to convince the BSP to withdraw from the eurozone, then most likely they will compromise on some other dimension“, commented Georgi Ganev.
“Entering the eurozone is not a panacea. We are used to it, we are constantly looking for something that will settle our affairs – some messiah who will appear and fix us. Now we think that if we enter the eurozone, everything will be fine“, said Prof. Minasyan and gave as an example Slovakia, which has been a member of the eurozone for over 10 years, but chose an eastern policy.
The professor explained that when we join the eurozone, there will also be an increase in inflation in our country.
“Now we are striving for inflation to be up to 3%, but we do not take into account that our price level is the lowest in the EU, parallel to Romania. We will inevitably gravitate towards the average European level. And how will this gravitation happen - at the expense of higher inflation in our country compared to the EU. This means equalizing prices. The question is how the population will assimilate it“.