site.btaCabinet Decisions: Highlights

At its regular weekly meeting here on Wednesday, the Council of Ministers transacted business as follows:

- updated the National Map of Higher Education. Economics, pedagogy and medicine are among the most popular professional fields in higher education, with more than half of students on a national scale studying them.

- cancelled the concept for promoting the training of software specialists (2015 - 2030). The reason for the decision was that a large part of the priorities, measures and activities in it are adapted and applied in other strategic documents in the field of education and science.

-  adopted a long-term investment policy of the State Fund for Guaranteeing the Stability of the State Pension System and the medium-term strategy for investing its funds for the period 2024-2026. Both documents were approved by the Fund's Board of Directors and provide for the preservation of the previously applied conservative approach to asset management, respecting the principles of reliability, liquidity and transparency.

- adopted a decision to open a consulate of the Republic of Bulgaria in the Republic of Mauritius, headed by honourary consular officer Puman Vishal Ramlal with headquarters in the city of Ebene Cybercity and with a consular region covering the territory of the Republic of Mauritius.

- approved changes to the updated medium-term budget forecast for the period 2024-2026. The changes ensure consistency of the parameters in the updated medium-term forecast for the period 2024-2026 with the budget laws for 2024 adopted by the National Assembly, as well as with the changes in the tax laws.

- approved the provision of additional funds in the amount of up to BGN 4,191,648 for national public co-financing of biodiversity conservation activities from the National Plan for Recovery and Resilience.

- approved a report on the results of the regular meeting of the EU Council on Economic and Financial Affairs (ECOFIN), which took place on December 8, 2023 in Brussels. Participants were briefed on the progress report prepared by the Presidency on the single currency package, consisting of proposals defining the legal framework for the eventual introduction of the digital euro and the status of euro banknotes and coins as legal tender. The Council exchanged views on the economic and financial consequences of Russia's aggression against Ukraine, discussed the implementation of the Recovery and Resilience Mechanism and adopted Council Implementation Decisions approving the assessments of the Recovery and Resilience Plans of Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Poland and Romania.

- approved a report on the meeting of the Council of the European Union on the environment, held on December 18, 2023 in Brussels. The main topics of the meeting were packaging and packaging waste, soil and forest monitoring and sustainability.

- determined the rules for consideration and evaluation of offers and conclusion of contracts in the selection procedures with public invitation, conducted by beneficiaries of grants from the European Funds under shared management.

-  approved a report from the meeting of the EU Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council (Transport format), which took place on December 4, 2023 in Brussels. Its main topics were land and sea transport and cross-border exchange of information.

- continued by five years the operation of a memorandum of understanding with the USA regarding the imposition of restrictions on the import of categories of Bulgarian archaeological materials and ethnological materials.