Economists compared the philosophy of the budget for next year with that of Zhan Videnov. Some even suggested that it be thrown out the window, as Ventsislav Dimitrov already did years ago. Now the main questions are whether the budget plan should be considered at all, or whether it is necessary to write a completely new one. The answers to these questions in the program “Crossroads” were given by economist Georgi Ganev.
"The budget issue is more political than financial. It is quite problematic from the state's finances. But, if these four political forces see any chance of forming a regular cabinet with a majority, then the politically more correct thing for this new government is to give it the opportunity to draw up a budget and present it to parliament, even with some delay. It won't be the first time," he is categorical.
“I am coming from a meeting of my colleagues from “Democratic Bulgaria”, who asked me to attend the talks of the working group between GERB and DB, which discusses budget issues. This is part of a much larger context of negotiations between GERB and other political forces. My impression is that common topics for conversation were found that make sense to talk about. In both budget lines, enough sections were found to start a discussion”, he emphasized.
In his words, regarding revenues “it is clear that there is no way that all the promised cash inflows will come”. ”And of course, in the expenditure side, the big conversation is about these 98 billion leva, which it is obvious that the revenue side cannot finance, how and which ones should be reduced. There are quite different opinions on this point, but I think that at least the tone of the meeting was to try to reach an agreement”, Ganev explained.
According to him, the conversation he attended “was really about the budget issues”. ”To the extent that any decision was reached, it is to invite representatives of the Ministry of Finance to ask about the specific expenses - what is behind them and why this money is in such huge amounts. Because anyone who has done an accounting for the areas they understand more closely can see that there is some money that is in excess. Let's see what reserves there are in the budget, because everyone who makes a budget leaves such reserves”.