Prof. Rumen Gechev to FACT: We gave the European Bank 2 tons of gold (VIDEO)

The bargaining over the budget and the staging of the theater are just beginning. The Pazardzhik theater productions, which we saw recently during the elections, will continue around the budget. I am sure that from the initial numbers, significant changes will occur in the staging of these political “performances“. The crisis with the Bulgarian budget is already a fact. I want to help my fellow journalists pay attention to something that no one has commented on so far. On October 6 of this year, the Council of Ministers published Decision No. 684, which can be seen on the official government website. He announced this to Lili Marinkova in the “FACT“ studio and the show “Conversation“ economist Prof. Rumen Gechev, former MP from the Bulgarian Socialist Party.

„The decision of the Council of Ministers, in just four sentences and two points, states the following - in the budget of the Republic of Bulgaria for 2026, the state is prohibited from providing investment loans and providing guarantees for investment loans. Let me translate it: this means that the government will not allocate a single penny to support public-private partnerships or investment projects of municipalities, outside of their own revenues. This is a sign that the state is in a state close to bankruptcy – let's not call it that directly, but in reality there is no money for investments. The entire budget will be directed solely to covering salaries and current expenses“, added the guest.

„In a budget in which there is no investment policy, there is no vision for the future. There are no projects – neither for 2026, nor for the following years, including in strategic sectors such as energy. We are literally “barefoot on the asphalt”. This is also directly related to entering the eurozone. In the summer, the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) purchased 2 tons of gold, which is worth just under 300 million US dollars, and provided them directly to the European Central Bank for disposal. From January 1 next year, the BNB will release nearly 16 billion leva from mandatory reserves, and the interest on them will be reduced from 12% to 1%. Until now, the BNB used commercial banks' deposits without paying them interest, but realized a return on these funds and transferred about 600 million leva to the budget annually. From next year, this will no longer happen – reserves will be released, interest will fall, and the BNB will directly incur losses as early as 2026.
There are several reasons:
- the two tons of gold have already been provided to another institution and do not bring in income;
- the reserves that brought in income will be released
- the 600 million leva that the BNB annually contributed to the budget will not arrive
In addition, the government had the audacity to demand payment of profit tax from the banks in advance and collected about 500 million leva.
To summarize:
- 600 million leva will not arrive from the BNB;
- 500 million leva has already been taken in advance from the banks
This means that the budget will start 2026 with a deficit of about 1.1 billion leva, even before it has begun the year“, Prof. Gechev also said.

See more from the conversation in the VIDEO.