site.btaUPDATED Prime Minister Comments on Demands for More Budget Outlays

Prime Minister Kiril Petkov Wednesday said that money will no longer be given “in bulk”, and that efficiency will be sought. He was commenting on the discontent in various sectors over the resources allocated under the 2022 State Budget Bill. Among those who have insisted on more money, are police officers, firefighters, museum and gallery personnel, and the prosecution service.

Parliament at the moment is holding a second-reading debate on the bill.

Petkov said that there should be security and that the State’s money will be spent in the best way possible. By increasing efficiency, more money will go to those who are doing their jobs. The Prime Minister gave as an example the resources for the prosecution service, noting that Bulgaria allocates nearly twice more of its GDP to the prosecuting magistracy than other European countries do. “Yet, look at the efficiency, the service we have provided to the citizens,” Petkov noted. Various demands for more resources have been received by the Government but the goal is to also conduct reforms, he added.

“The budget in its current form is the best that we managed to do,” Petkov said. In his words, a budget update will be necessary because in the next several months all the reforms set in the ruling coalition’s agreement need to start happening. Conducting a reform does not mean reducing budgets, he stressed.