The EC proposal met with mainly disapproval regarding the budget. This budget will come into force in 2028. The ambition is supposedly greater, but the funds are the same. Some 100 billion are included for Ukraine. There are significant funds (between 3 and 5 times) for defense and armament, more for guarding external borders. Europe today is more right-wing than 5 years ago. There are significantly fewer funds for agriculture and cohesion policy. It is also unacceptable that the spending of funds will be structured in a different way through the so-called regional plans. This was stated by MEP Christian Vigenin in the program “From the Day” on BNT.
As it seems, this budget is unacceptable to us. Changes to it are yet to be discussed, the MEP admits.
There is obviously agreement that more funds should be directed to security and defense, Vigenin noted.
Due to the political situation, we are very behind with the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP). A huge part of the funds that we thought were lost for nothing have not and will enter the Bulgarian economy. This will happen, but against reforms. Now we have the chance to catch up. We must ensure that the policy that is being pursued will lead to effective, transparent and impartial justice. However, for a large part of citizens and businesses, this is not the case. In order to increase trust, there must be concrete steps, said Christian Vigenin.
The MEP also commented on the protests against the arrest of Mayor Blagomir Kotsev. “PP-DB made many mistakes. You can't always be against and against. You can't always expect someone to lend you a hand. The BSP is not at the protests because corrupt practices cannot be covered up with political protests. There should be no political pressure on the prosecutor's office and the court. But the actions of the prosecutor's office and the court left a bitter aftertaste, which gave rise to these protests. There is no black and white here. This is a topic on which we cannot argue, but rather sit down together and see what we can do for Bulgarian citizens”.