site.btaDemocratic Bulgaria Slams Finance Minister's State Budget Projections

Speaking to reporters in Parliament on Wednesday, Democratic Bulgaria (DB) MP Martin Dimitrov criticized the 2025 state budget projections recently presented by Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova, calling them "a complete chaos". He said that "in order to artificially show a large deficit, the revenue figures for January had been set about a billion less than last year’s. This is absurd". 

During a meeting of the Joint Governance Council on Tuesday, Petkova said that January’s revenue would be nearly BGN 3.684 billion, while usual expenditures and transfers would amount to BGN 4.092 billion, resulting in a BGN 407 million deficit in the state budget.

Dimitrov noted that Democratic Bulgaria had invited Finance Minister Petkova to the Budget Committee to help her "get the 2025 state budget estimates right." He added that "this will calm her down and allow her to draw up the budget, reassured that there is no such deficit."

"It is worrisome that the ruling coalition did not commit to the 3% deficit target at their meeting. Do they intend to keep sabotaging [Bulgaria’s accession to] the euro area?”.

The Cabinet should have been ready with a brief legislative programme for the National Assembly to work on, CC-DB's Bozhidar Bozhanov said. 

"We do not see the Recovery and Resilience Plan bills, even though they have been ready for a long time," he noted. The MP said that it is too early to proceed with the election of the deputy presidents of the Bulgarian National Audit Office, adding that the "rules do not align with the principles set out in the governance agreement". Bozhanov said that they will propose revisions to ensure the integrity of the candidates. "DB believes that former caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev is not eligible to hold the post of President of the Bulgarian National Audit Office, as he has served as Foreign Minister," the MP added.

Ahead of a meeting of the Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) Parliamentary Group on Tuesday, CC co-leader and former finance minister Assen Vassilev also criticized the Finance Ministry’s projections, describing them as "unrealistic". He noted that for two weeks, the Finance Ministry has been unable to specify the revenue and expenditure figures for January, initially projecting revenues of BGN 3.6 billion and expenditures of BGN 3.2 billion and later revising them to BGN 3.6 billion and BGN 4 billion, respectively.