site.btaCC Co-leader Vassilev: Slavi Trifonov Should Not Give Financial Policy Advice, Better Find Another Excuse for Joining Cabinet

There Is Such a People leader Slavi Trifonov should not give advice on financial policy; if he needs an excuse for joining the Government, he should seek it elsewhere, said Assen Vassilev, Continue the Change (CC) co-leader and former finance minister, in a Facebook post on Thursday. Vassilev was commenting on a post by Trifonov earlier in the day.

Trifonov wrote on Facebook: "I will do everything in my power and in the power of There Is Such a People (TISP) to stabilize our country and in a few years we will start to get better." In Trifonov's words, the ugly truth is that the country is facing bankruptcy. "Do you know what it means to have a gap of BGN 18 billion in the budget? It means that if there is no government now to adopt a budget and start fixing the ruin caused by Assen Vassilev, in two months the country will have no money for teachers, doctors, pensioners, researchers, etc.," Trifonov said.

Vassilev commented that were there a gap of BGN 18 billion in the budget, that would mean a deficit of over 9%. "Despite all claims and insinuations, the documents published by the Finance Ministry show the following: one, we finished 2024 with a 3% deficit, exactly as was set in the budget and, two, the draft budget tabled in Parliament sets a 3% deficit for 2025, despite the significantly inflated expenditures in that budget," Vassilev argued.

"I do not give Slavi advice on how to write his scripts, he'd better not give advice on financial policy. If he needs an excuse for joining the Government, he should seek is somewhere else. Not in [North] Macedonia and not in the BGN 18 million," Vassilev's post reads.

Trifonov is a TV show host and producer. His party is one of the formations participating in the newly formed regular government of GERB-UDF's Rosen Zhelyazkov.