site.btaBulgarian Employers' Organizations Association Priorities Include Macroeconomic, Financial, Fiscal Stability in 2025

Macroeconomic, financial and fiscal stability, recalibration of the Green Deal for competitive industry, Bulgaria's membership in the euro area and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and education are the main national priorities of the Association of Bulgarian Employers' Organizations (ABEO) for 2025, said Vasil Velev, Chair of the Board of the Association of Industrial Capital in Bulgaria which is the current rotating chair of ABEO, said on Monday at a press conference at the BTA National Press Club in Sofia. 

In 2024, ABEO's rotating chair was the Confederation to the Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria (KRIB). ABEO was established in 1995 and includes the Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association (BICA), the Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA), the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) and KRIB. "Our members provide employment to over 82% of those employed in Bulgaria and produce over 86% of the country's gross value added," Velev said.

He reminded that in the last few years ABEO's national priorities included Bulgaria's three memberships - to Schengen, euro area and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), pointing out that this year they were expanded. "Macroeconomic, financial and fiscal stability was taken for granted until recently and was not in our national priorities, but financial and fiscal stability has wavered in recent years," Velev said.

BIA Chair Dobri Mitrev presented the priorities of the AOBR in the business environment and the economy. Among them, he highlighted the preservation of the existing tax model and the reduction of the share of gross domestic product (GDP) redistributed through the State Budget.

Mitrev noted that the country's tax model has shown one of the small competitive advantages Bulgaria has among its partners in the European Union. Tax collection in Bulgaria is extremely high. "We have an over-performance of revenues in the State Budget both from taxes and social security," he said.

The sharp reduction of the administrative burden, especially for small and medium-sized businesses, the promotion of investment in the real productive sector are among the other priorities of the ABEO.

On the topic of education and labour market, among the top priorities for ABEO is the orientation of secondary and higher education to the needs of the labour market, BCCI Chair Tsvetan Simeonov said. Other important priorities for business include further easing, speeding up and cheapening the procedures for importing workers from third countries to Bulgaria and measures to promote their sustainable employment in the country, as well as developing a programme and package of measures to attract and return to the country highly qualified and scarce specialists.

In connection with the inauguration today of the re-elected US President Donald Trump, in response to a question by BTA, Velev pointed out that from what has been stated so far certain turbulence in world trade is expected, mainly in the line of the introduction of various tariffs. "The European Union should emancipate itself to a greater extent and seek the European interest in world affairs because we - conservative-minded Bulgarians, were very happy about this election, but he promised to make America great, not Europe, and we should take care of it," he added. In his words, Bulgaria and the European Union should reconsider the Green Deal and the "suicidal sanctions". Trump's election as US President provides favourable conditions for this, he argued.