Former Finance Minister Assen Vassilev is ready to provide support for the necessary legislation to unblock the second tranche of the Recovery and Sustainability Plan. Vassilev explained to journalists that the PP-DB has submitted the laws on the PVU to the 51st National Assembly, but they have not been distributed to the parliamentary committees for consideration, reports novini.bg.
What is most cynical is that because of the fear of the judicial reform laid down in the PVU, the people and business are being told to give up 10 billion leva. If they intend to save the PVU and the second payment, it is not that difficult, Vassilev pointed out.
He added that instead of spending a whole day reviewing a declaration condemning the protest of "Vazrazhdane" in front of the European Commission building in Sofia, they could now look at the PVU laws in the first and second reading - they were not so scary. For the third, fourth and fifth payment under the PVU, the reforms are much smaller. The energy map must also be adopted in order to see how the energy sector is developing, urged Assen Vassilev.
Vassilev warned that in general the entire PVU is put at risk due to the unadopted anti-corruption legislation. It later turned out that the problem was not the anti-corruption legislation, but the reforms in the "Energy" sector. In the "Energy" part Bulgaria must achieve a reduction in carbon emissions of up to 40%, and the goal was already met last year, without closing a single thermal power plant. The other thing that Assen Vassilev finds interesting is that GERB remembered that there is geothermal energy in Bulgaria.
Assen Vassilev stated that the PP-DB will not support Budget 2025 in its current form. The reason - there are three major problems with the entire macro-construction of the budget, the main one of which - that more debt is being taken on than is necessary. There is almost 7 billion leva more debt that is pledged and will be taken and given as capitalization to state-owned enterprises. If they want to restart the highway schemes with this budget and distribute them downwards without an order, there is no way we can support Budget 2025, Vassilev emphasized.