I don't want to be the only one who likes this budget, but I think that this budgetary agony must end as soon as possible.
This is what Prof. Daniela Bobeva, financier, lecturer and former Deputy Prime Minister, told FOCUS on the occasion of the adoption of the first reading of the draft law on the state budget for this year.
And she added: "On February 1 last year, a decision of the Council of Ministers, signed by Mariya Gabriel as Prime Minister, began the budget procedure for Budget 2025. So far, there are 16 documents, decisions of the Council of Ministers, related to Budget 2025. Just for information about the 2024 Budget, there were 4. This discussion does not stop and it is increasingly destructive and for the little that remains a good assessment of our public finances.
So the sooner, the better to end this agony. For me, the debate about it was very destructive - taboos were falling, things were being done that are not talked about, especially it is full of experts who understand, who does not understand, go around the studios and pay people, misunderstood things were being said. I think there is no Bulgarian who could understand from all this discussion how much the deficit is, how much it is planned to be. No one understood whether there is really 18 or 8, or how many billions.
That is, complete chaos occurred not only in our understanding of public finances, but also in public finances themselves. So my opinion is that the debate should end as soon as possible, this budget should be adopted and then we will think about it."
The budget is based on economic growth of 2.8%, with a planned 25% growth in tax and social security revenues. Regarding how a high percentage of VAT will be collected with low economic growth, the professor said that for the first time the forecasts of the Ministry of Finance, which are included in the budget, are close to those of others who forecast economic growth.
"The BNB, I think, is 0.3 different from the BNB forecast, the European Commission, its forecast is somewhere around 2.5-2.6, the IMF too. That is, for the first time in many years, we have a consensus about how much we will grow this year, 2025. So far so good, we have overcome the problem. Last year, growth was planned to be 1% higher than what happened, and we all knew that this growth would not happen.
Now, however, we have excessively inflated revenues so that they can cover the generous spending. So I stand in solidarity with colleagues who believe that the increase in revenues is inflated, including tax revenues, we have not had such jumps in revenues in at least the last 30 years".