This budget is being used for preparations for elections. The wise prime minister's decision was not to submit such a budget. What was submitted is completely impossible. Such revenues will not come if we are going to jump over our heads, and the expenses are unjustifiably inflated, billions too much.
This was said in an interview with the Bulgarian National Radio by economist Georgi Ganev, former MP from the PP-DB, program director at the Center for Liberal Strategies.
Glavchev should not try too hard to attack the deputies, after he "brought" this draft budget, the economist pointed out.
The state has long since begun to abuse the fact that the lives of so many people depend on it. It even does so purposefully. It is not ruled out that politicians will once again play with the fates of people in hopes of receiving political dividends, the economist commented in connection with the uncertainty surrounding January pensions and the lack of a 2025 Budget.
A very likely scenario is that this budget will be rejected by parliament on first reading, that it will not pass and that the caretaker cabinet will urgently have to prepare another budget, predicts Georgi Ganev. In his words, the Ministry of Finance has "sufficiently competent people who can make a much more normal budget".
On the topic of VAT on bread and flour and the reduced VAT for restaurateurs, the economist is categorical that there should be no going back.
Ganev reminded that when the VAT for restaurateurs was reduced, we did not notice "any frantic printing of new menus with lower prices, but now it is done out of lobbying".
"They simply took a margin of 11% and hugged it very well. There is no longer any reason - human, vital, social - to continue this tax preference for restaurateurs, which turns it not into help, but into a pure privilege. They have no right to such a privilege."
Regarding the eurozone, the economist is optimistic. According to him, our country is rapidly moving towards fulfilling the criteria.