Sofia's surface public transport will operate tomorrow.
This was announced to bTV by Georgi Panayotov - chairman of the "Podkrepa" trade union in the Sofia electric transport.
“The union will continue to demand higher salaries for employees in the sector“, Panayotov also said.
On the sixth day of the blockade, the government announced that it would allocate 15 million leva to the Sofia Municipality to resolve the crisis in public transport.
This became clear after a meeting between Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov and union leaders in the sector earlier today.
According to the unions, the amount should be enough to increase their salaries by the requested 300 leva. - to 7,000 transport workers in the four companies.
„We will keep a close eye on these 15 million leva. to be used only for wages“, commented Todor Kapitanov, vice president of the Confederation of Bulgarian Trade Unions.
At a meeting at the GERB headquarters, the party leader Boyko Borisov ordered that public transport should start running from tomorrow, if possible even from tonight.
“Contact the unions today and public transport should start running from tomorrow, if possible even from tonight“, Borisov said.
The chairman of the Sofia Municipality Transport Commission Ivan Takov explained that the problem with pay in the capital's public transport has been going on for a long time, as the unions warned more than a month ago that they would go on a protest, but there was no reaction from the city administration.
A comment also came from the mayor of Sofia Vasil Terziev. He described what is happening as another episode of the series “Creating a problem – solving a problem“ by the same people.
“These 15 million come today, quickly, to solve a problem, but they don't say that the municipality must next year and the year after find every single lev voted for an increase. Once again, we are witnessing how people don't think sustainably“, commented the mayor.
According to lawyers, civil disobedience borders on a crime.
“Civil disobedience borders on a crime, because they have blocked the landfills. Which means that even the workers who don't want to strike cannot go out to do their job“, explained lawyer Svetlana Neykova.