The Council of Ministers withdraws the draft budget for 2025 and submits a new one by February 14. The news was announced by Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov and Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova after the first regular cabinet meeting.
„The Council of Ministers will discuss and decide to withdraw the 2025 budget law, the NHIF and DOO budget bills, as well as the package of tax laws”. This was stated by Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov at the beginning of the first government meeting of the new cabinet, Nova TV reported.
The Prime Minister explained that today's decision of the Council of Ministers is based on the picture that is available from the report for January 2025 from Eurostat.
Temenuzhka Petkova called the situation with public finances "severe". The Finance Minister accused the country's previous administrations of "unreasonable and populist increases in spending, without any economic prerequisites for this". Petkova stressed that delayed payments to personal assistants in the country have been secured.
BGNES recalls that according to Eurostat data, Bulgaria has the fastest growing debt to Gross Domestic Product in the European Union. Our country has the second lowest ratio of public debt to GDP in the EU - 24.6% or 48.7 billion leva. Bulgaria is surpassed in this indicator only by Estonia - 24%.
“The reason for withdrawing these laws is that Bulgaria already has a regular government, which has its own policies. They should be reflected in the Budget Act for 2025. We are also withdrawing the tax laws. By February 14, the Ministries of Finance, Labor and Social Policy, and Health are obliged to submit the draft law to the Council of Ministers, and then it should be voted on in the National Assembly”, pointed out Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova. She expressed hope that the revision of the budget plan would lead to a budget with a deficit of up to 3% of the country's GDP, which does not require raising taxes or cutting important investment spending.
A Ministry of Finance analysis showed in what condition the "Zhelyazkov" cabinet "takes over" the state. "Revenues for January are 3,684,307,000 leva. Expenditures would normally be 3,277,000,000. There is a deficit of 407,550,000 leva. Revenues for February are 2,266,000,000 leva. Expenditures - 4 billion. The deficit is 1,735,800,000 leva. For March, revenues are 3,062,000,000 leva. The expenses are 4,553,000,000 leva. This makes a deficit of 1,491,028,000 leva. The total deficit for the first quarter of 2025, which would have been generated, was 3,634,378,000 leva. This is the framework in which we are working in the extended period until the adoption of a regular budget law. This result is a consequence of the unreasonable management of public finances over the last 3 years”, Petkova pointed out.
In order to cover the generated deficit, the Ministry of Finance has asked the cabinet to use funds from the fiscal reserve. “The data on it will be released on Friday, but there should be 9.2 billion leva. 4.2 of them are the Silver Fund. There are 5 billion leva left, which we could benefit from”, Petkova specified.