site.btaPermanent Residents, Diplomatic Staff Eligible to Get COVID-19 Vaccines

February 12 (BTA) - In 2021, COVID-19 vaccines can be administered to permanent residents of Bulgaria, Parliament decided here by amending on second reading a Bill amending the Act on the Measures and Actions during the State of Emergency Declared by a Resolution of the National Assembly of 13 March 2020 and on Addressing the Consequences.

In addition to permanent residents, the scope of vaccines will include members of diplomatic missions and consulates, representations of international organizations that are accredited in Bulgaria, as well as members of their administrative and technical staff. The rules and order for administering the vaccines will be defined in Bulgaria's national COVID-19 vaccination plan.

According to other amendments to the same legislation, compensations paid out to staff under the job retention programme in view of overcoming the COVID-19 consequences, will not be subject to coercive enforcement for up to two months after the state of emergency is lifted.

MPs voted other provisions, according to which micro, small- and medium-sized enterprises that were closed on the Health Minister's orders after November 1, 2020, will be provided grant aid based on their reported revenue, VAT excluded, for the calendar period between March 1, 2020 and February 29, 2020, for the time until their activities are allowed to resume. Enterprises that had suspended their activities on the Health Minister's orders after January 1, 2020, will get grant aid based on a percentage of their revenue, VAT excluded, reported in the month prior to their closure.

With the adoption of other texts, MPs allowed for concluding an annex to the national framework agreement in the healthcare system concerning the remuneration of staff working in hazardous conditions during the declared state of emergency. The funds for paying hazardous work will come through an additional transfer from the Health Ministry's budget.

MPs voted to exempt municipalities that have failed to promptly service their interest-free loans provided under the central budget for a period of up to two months after the state of emergency is lifted. The proposal, sponsored by GERB MP Menda Stoyanova, and adopted between first and second reading, amends the Local Taxes and Fees Act. The amendments tie the deadlines for the entry into force of certain provisions of the Local Taxes and Fees Act to the results of the population and housing census in 2021.

The adopted on second reading Bill amends texts of the State Reserve and Wartime Stocks Act, which allow for the State Reserve and Wartime Stocks State Agency to carry out the activities of the State Oil Company State-owned enterprise until the Agency fully transfers its assets, liabilities, archive and stored reserves and stocks to the State Oil Company.

The conclusively adopted texts of the State of Emergency Act amended ordinances of the Gambling Act concerning keno and bingo games. The submission of information to the National Revenue Agency's (NRA) server and the mandatory online registration of every bingo game transaction in the NRA's system is regulated.

Another text stipulates that families and relatives or the voluntary adoptive families of children with disabilities will get monthly benefits for raising these children, as well as their parents/foster parents. The term "voluntary adoptive families"is regulated as adoptive families "that are "not professional." RY/MY

/DT/