Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova stated at an extraordinary briefing in the Council of Ministers that today at a PP roundtable the issue of the 2025 budget was addressed, as:
"Again, Asen Vassilev criticized the budget and I will ask the question what he criticizes Vassilev for, he criticizes his own policies, since in the last 4 years he has been the sole leader of public finances in Bulgaria. He got scared. Our government and the PP GERB have only been participating in the governance of the country for a little over a month, but we have the privilege of paying Vassilev's old bills - half a billion for RIA, 246 million MLSP and MTS, 524 million under the municipal investment program, etc.," said Petkova.
The expenses in the budget law are as provided for by the current legislation. We have not allocated a single leva more than what is provided for within the framework of the current legislation.
The budget submitted by us compared to the budget of the caretaker government has been reduced by 2.2 billion in expenses. Vassilev claims that he does not know what these funds will be used for. What did Vassilev spend over 1 billion and 260 million leva on. He took money to buy grain, no grain was bought, and no one knows what happened to these funds, Petkova commented.
Regarding statements by Nikolay Denkov from the PP that the budget will explode, since the money from the PVU will not come, Petkova said that the EU funds in principle and under the PVU plan are neutral for the Bulgarian budget.
Nothing will explode, for the information of colleagues from the PP-DB, said Petkova.
As for the BDB, they think that some great things will be done there, insufficient preparation is demonstrated on this topic. If they had read the statute of the BDB, they would have seen that private companies can be financed from the BDB with up to 5 million leva, Petkova also noted.