Interior Minister Atanas Ilkov is confident that police officers will welcome 2025 with higher salaries.
"This depends on the parliament, which must answer a much bigger question than whether the salaries of police officers, military personnel, and DANS will increase. The question is where these billions will come from, which were passed into laws, without anyone thinking about whether we earn them and whether we pay for them with our taxes", said former Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Interior Filip Gunev in the studio of "Denyat ON AIR".
On the air of Bulgaria ON AIR, he asked whether it would be necessary to take out a loan and whether political mistakes would be acknowledged.
The standard of living in Sofia is more expensive
"Everyone should be well motivated, have decent salaries that people are happy with. But there is still reality and what we can afford. Starting salaries in the Ministry of Interior are small, especially in small towns. A few months ago, the director of the "Border Police" boasted that over 2,000 people had applied for 700 positions. So there is interest even at the current salaries," Gunev added.
He recalled that the standard of living in Sofia is much more expensive.
"There are not enough candidates here and there is a problem. With a starting salary of 1,400 leva in Sofia, you cannot feed a family and that is the reality. There are needs, but they are for 1.3 billion. This money is for the increase of everyone in the chain and that is where the key lies. But this should have been done in March, not now. Some people postponed their retirement so that the 20 salaries could be their new salaries," emphasized the former Deputy Minister of the Interior.
The cars are still in a deplorable condition
In his words, if this money had been spent on repairing all the regional offices, there would have been even more motivation among the workers, but the cars continue to be in a deplorable condition.
"We have several thousand people who also receive their pensions on top of their salaries. With them, motivation plays a completely different role than that of attracting young people. In Western Europe, the difference in salary between someone who is starting out and someone who is a boss can be 4-5 times, this is normal. The question here is whether we can afford it," explained Gunev.