site.btaCITUB Demands Urgent Action on Key Policies, Social Dialogue, Energy

The Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) has made demands for urgent action on key policies in the areas of income, labour market and social policy, social dialogue and energy. This took place at a press conference on Wednesday at CITUB HQ, where opinions were presented on the implementation of thematic areas, policies, and priorities of Cabinet’s governance programme.

“We think that for the nine months in which the government has been functioning, it is too early to make more in-depth assessments, but at the same time we have our claims to certain policies that are not being implemented effectively and do not even include in themselves as action at the appropriate time those steps and results that we expect,” said CITUB President Plamen Dimitrov.

He added that while the National Council for Tripartite Cooperation works actively and fulfils its functions, the same cannot be said about the social dialogue at sectoral level, implemented by sectoral councils for tripartite cooperation under the ministries.

The dialogue with the Ministry of Finance has been going on for the last nine months, said Lyuboslav Kostov, Director of the Institute for Social and Trade Union Studies at CITUB.

He stressed that the gross domestic product is currently 6.7 billion more than what the government had forecast.

Regarding the 2025 budget, CITUB wants the trade unions to be involved from day one, he said.

“We insist that the state start work on creating a separate unit because reclamation in the mines must begin,” said CITUB Vice President Ognyan Atanasov. “Reduced mining requires it and this is important because there could be deaths of people due to landslides and the environmental problem will be extremely big. We insist that the state consider how it will return the money to the mines so that they can start this reclamation,” Atanasov explained.

“The operation of TPP Maritsa East 2 is guaranteed until June. Our request was that the Electicity System Operator, together with the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission and the other institutions involved, make a plan so that we can be sure that it will be able to operate after June,” he added.

According to Atanasov, there are appalling discrepancies in the work programme of the Maritsa-East mines. He added that it is still unclear how the mines will work and how they will pay their salaries, which are not guaranteed as of next month.

“We want a national compensation programme for all those who will suffer from what is happening in the Maritsa-East mine complex, so that we in our collective agreements can try to negotiate appropriate compensation,” Atanasov said.