The parliament today adopted a law on first reading that aims to prohibit price increases without a good reason by traders until the end of 2026. It was submitted and approved by the Council of Ministers yesterday, and its goal is to combat speculation.
„The idea is to prohibit unjustified price increases. Another question is how a justified increase will be determined and what the criteria will be when it must be proven that the increase is justified. There are many such reasons, purely economic, and they happen all the time“, said Lidiya Shuleva, who is a former deputy prime minister.
As an example, she gave the tariffs that US leader Donald Trump is considering imposing on the European Union.
“The tariffs that will be paid by European companies that will import goods to the US will be paid for the most part by the Americans themselves. At the same time, the EU is considering countermeasures - tariffs on American goods - for example, for chicken. If the tariff on chicken is increased, the companies that import into the EU will not bear the tariff, but at the expense of us as consumers, and then it is natural for prices to rise“, explained Shuleva.
And she said that even though now “we write everything off on the account of the euro“ there are also similar processes that are not related to the eurozone.
She also explained that the constant talk about price increases by traders provokes precisely this effect in reality.
“All these fears are also fueled by the opponents of the euro, and very successfully. The intense talk about price increases sometimes leads to such effects“, said Shuleva.
And she called on the deputies to try to give a specific formulation of what exactly speculation is before the summer vacation.