site.btaConstruction Chamber Members Skeptical about Implementation of National Recovery and Resilience Plan

The members of the Bulgarian Construction Chamber (BCC) are skeptical about the implementation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan which they argue will be severely hindered by inflation, changing prices, absence of a price adjustment mechanism for the prices of building materials, energy and labour in Bulgaria, BCC Director Valentin Nikolov said on Wednesday, speaking at a BTA-hosted news conference. 

Nikolov said that recently construction companies have been opting out from participation in bidding procedures which he described as "very alarming and a threat for the development of the sector and the economy as a whole". Nikolov said that the problem is not "purely Bulgarian". Italy does not have a price adjustment mechanism too, he said. Germany and France have such mechanisms. Some of the countries in Central and Eastern Europe did not use to have such mechanisms but have meanwhile adopted them. Nikolov said that for months now the BCC has been in talks on the issue with the government and the legislature. He said that if Bulgaria fails to absorb the funding under the NRRP, it will go towards other countries "who are more flexible". 

The Vice President of the Podkrepa Labour Confederation and Chairman of the Construction, Industry and Water Supply Federation, Ioannis Parteonitis, said that not only there is absence of interest in the participation in bidding procedures under the NRRP but a great danger exists as well for the implementation of all capital projects under various operational programmes. Parteonitis said that "not a single operational programme has been spared". In his words, "the absence of interest is due to the unpredictability of the price adjustments of inputs, energy and labour," he said.