site.btaState Public Insurance Budget Bill Debated on Second Reading

State Public Insurance Budget Bill Debated on Second Reading


Sofia, December 19 (BTA) - Parliament adopted Friday the
Consolidated Budget of the 2015 State Public Insurance Budget
Bill, setting revenues and transfers at 9,633,205, 500 leva,
and expenditures and transfers at 9,629,267,000 leva.

The 2015 budget is in a surplus of 3.9 million leva, which will
be fully used to pay off long-term loans from banks and
financial institutions abroad.

At 4,569,600,000 leva, social insurance contributions account
for the largest proportion of revenues in 2015. These are
followed by: a transfer of 2,707,800,000 leva from the national
budget (12 per cent of the sum total of the contributory
incomes of all insured persons in the calendar year); a
transfer of 342,600,000 leva from the national budget to state
public insurance; 12 million leva in non-tax revenues; and an
additional transfer of 2,002,200,000 leva from the national
budget to cover the shortfall.

Expenditures on pensions will total 8,392,990,000 leva. Pensions
covered by public social insurance total 8,010,526,100 leva.
Pensions covered by the national budget total 339,304,400 leva.

Welfare benefits total 1,157,650,000 leva.

The MPs raised the maximum contributory income to 2,600 leva.
Earlier in the day, Delyan Dobrev (GERB), backed by Budget and
Finance Committee Chair Menda Stoyanova, suggested that it
should remain unchanged at 2,400 leva. The motion was adopted,
but later on Parliament Chair Tsetska Tsacheva said it was
unacceptable on a point of procedure, which led to the increase.

The minimum contributory income for registered farmers and
tobacco growers was raised to 300 leva, although the Movement
for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) and BSP-Left Bulgaria insisted
that it should remain unchanged at 240 leva.

The minimum contributory-income and retirement-age pension will
be 154.5 leva between January 1 and June 30, and 157.44 leva
between July 1 and December 31, 2015.

Child and unemployment benefits will remain unchanged.

The monthly benefit for raising a child aged between one and two
years is 340 leva.

Parliament rejected proposals by BSP-Left Bulgaria and the MRF
that the child benefit be linked to the increase in the minimum
wage and rise twice in 2015 by 20 leva each time.

Hassan Ademov (MRF) said the proposals were intended to help
mothers, emphasizing that this should apply only to insured
mothers.

Left-wing MP Georgi Gyokov warned that mothers were likely to
stage protests.

The minimum unemployment benefit remains unchanged at 7.20 leva
a day, or 154 leva a month. The majority did not back a motion
by BSP-Left Bulgaria to increase the daily minimum to 9.70
leva.

Left-wing MP Kornelia Ninova said Simeon Djankov, the finance
minister of GERB's first government (2009-2013), had de-linked
welfare benefits from the minimum wage, while in 2013 Plamen
Oresharski's cabinet tried to remedy this injustice and welfare
benefits rose as the minimum wage rose. She stressed that the
present government had frozen 14 welfare benefits and was saving
money at the expense of the most disadvantaged groups.

Labour and Social Policy Minister Ivailo Kalfin countered by
saying that "all you did for the mothers cost a deficit of 1,600
million leva". He stressed that these payments should not come
at the cost of a deficit but should depend on how much the State
can afford.

Kalfin also stressed that welfare benefits began to be de-linked
from the minimum wage when Oresharski was finance minister in
2005-2009. "I backed him at the time so that the minimum wage
would start to increase," he said.