site.btaTobacco Growers Will Not Be Exempt from Contributory Income Threshold Increase

Tobacco Growers Will Not Be Exempt from Contributory Income Threshold Increase

Madrid/Sofia, October 21 (BTA) - Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said on Wednesday that a planned exception concerning the contributory income threshold for tobacco growers will not be enforced, Borissov's GERB party reported in a press release.

The exception, announced recently by Labour and Social Policy Minister Ivailo Kalfin, was aimed to exempt tobacco growers from a 7.5 per cent default rate of increase of the contributory income threshold in 37 economic sectors in which employers and trade unions had not agreed a specific rate or had not negotiated at all.

Kalfin's intention drew sharp criticism from observers who questioned the lack of growth in the tobacco industry, which had been cited as a reason for keeping the contributory income threshold in the tobacco sector unchanged. Prime Minister Borissov also disapproved of Kalfin's initiative and was apparently displeased that he had not been informed about it.

Borissov said: "This will not be approved. I can guarantee that. And I hope that the next time such desires emerge, I will be notified before any announcements are made in the public domain, because this one did not get through the Council of Ministers or the Tripartite Council. I was made to suffer setbacks about something that I knew nothing about."

He added, however, that he has a wonderful relationship with Kalfin.

The Prime Minister was speaking to Bulgarian journalists in Madrid before a congress of the European People's Party.