Earlier this month, it became clear that the World Bank has classified Bulgaria as a high-income country. This news is an important reflection of the long-term growth trajectory and catching-up process of the developed countries, particularly those in the European Union. Still, it is far from meaning that Bulgaria already has a guaranteed spot in the rich countries club and does not have any difficult problems to solve.
Bulgaria loses between 2.4 and 4.9 billion USD of additional GDP per year due to discrimination against LGBTI+ people, as estimated in a report[1] by the Institute for Market Economics (IME). Bulgaria’s GDP could be 2.5% to 5% higher were there to be full acceptance and equality for LGBTI+ people, according to an estimate by IME based on the 2023 data.
In the past weeks, the convergence reports of the European Commission and the European Central Bank were published. The result for Bulgaria is expected – the inflation rate is higher than the reference value and therefore the country does not meet this Eurozone membership criterion. In practice, this puts an end to the question of whether the country can adopt the euro on 1 January 2025 – no, there is no such possibility.
Bulgaria’s justice deficits have become an invariable part of local political discourse. Often, this leads to numerous statutory changes and rarely to a quality change of the environment.
Last week the Sofia City Prosecutor’s Office reached new legal heights after indicting prosecutor Konstantin Sulev for an offense concerning their professional conduct because last year he accused Peter Petrov without evidence. If one day Mr. Sulev decides to seek justice for his violated rights and if our state fails to guarantee him effective domestic remedies, he will probably have grounds to do so before the European Court of Human Rights.
2004 was a historical moment that welcomed Central Europe back after an era of Soviet yoke. The accession required great effort from all parties involved and, despite many obstacles, it was deemed a success. Yet, integration remains incomplete with respect to membership in the Schengen Zone and Euro Area.
After 1989, it has become obvious that the so-called ‘West’, or Europe in general, have had a far greater chance of winning the Cold War. But this prospect was not even properly discussed, let alone expected or predicted by scholars, politicians, and defense strategists on either side of the Iron Curtain.
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.
At the end of last week, the current proposal for changing the minimum wage level was published. It is interesting for several reasons, mainly because, for the first time, the new mechanism for determining the minimum wage is applied, linking it to the dynamics of the average wage. This, in the context of high inflation and the subsequent rapid growth of wages, leads to its largest nominal increase in the last two decades.
Soon it will be 8 years since the last constitutional changes related to the Bulgarian judiciary. As politicians are evidently in a hurry to present us with a Christmas gift in the form of new amendments to the Fundamental Law, perhaps it is a good idea to recall what happened in 2015, highlight the differences with the current situation, and suggest why there is such a lack of enthusiasm for the current initiative.
