Petar Ganev

In 2024, Romania will break the 50% government debt limit, becoming the EU country with the largest increase in the debt-to-GDP ratio since the start of the pandemic. High budget deficits - levels of 6-9% of GDP - have pushed Romania\'s debt from 35% in 2019 to 52% in 2024, with a forecast of close to 60% in 2026. In just a few years, Romania will likely have a higher debt than Germany.

Economic policy in Europe is visibly shifting towards prioritizing competitiveness over green objectives. Over the past year, former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta published an ambitious report in support of the EU single market, followed by Mario Draghi\'s widely quoted report on the future of European competitiveness.

In October, Bulgarian interim Finance Minister Lyudmila Petkova held a press conference regarding the 2025 state budget and the medium-term framework for 2025–2028. The biggest surprise was the expert assessment, based on current policies and enacted legislation, which projected a nominal spending increase of BGN 18.1 billion in 2025. Such a significant rise, even as an expert projection, raises several questions:

New member states from CEE have come a long way in the last two decades, building upon their competitive advantages, expanding economic freedom and seizing the opportunities of the European Single Market. 

Bulgaria\'s per capita gross domestic product in purchasing power parity terms has reached 64% of the European average in 2023. This is one of the indicators that most accurately shows convergence within the European Union, as it takes into account the differences in prices across countries and therefore gives fully comparable values.

Bulgaria’s Мinistry of Finance recently published the \'tax package\' for 2024, including proposed changes to all tax laws. Alongside widely discussed cases such as the return of the standard VAT rate for restaurants and bread and non-payment of bills in case of an undeclared cash receipt, the package also includes perhaps the deepest change in business taxation in our country in over 15 years.

Total management collapse, poor infrastructure, shameful results, and alienation of fans from the stadium, now even aided by water cannons. The agony of Bulgarian football has reached an incomprehensible low. An appointed match for the national team with empty stands, fights outside the stadium, and a middle finger for farewell seem to mark the end of the team in the Bulgarian Football Union (BFU).

The period of instability in 2021 could easily be redefined as stretching up to 2022, given that the cabinet of Kiril Petkov lasted twice as short as that of Plamen Oresharski. The most recent elections show that the political crisis in Bulgaria is far from over.

The conclusions of the ECB’s report is that establishing an environment that favors a steady convergence requires policies aiming at economic stability, as well as wide structural reforms. This statement holds regardless of whether we will adopt the Euro or not.

In the last weeks, we saw debates between the state and the municipalities, which discussed options to increase the resources for local development, but once again these evolved in the direction of centralized solutions.