Bulgaria

The EU Commission’s (EC) spring forecast, demonstrating the expected real growth for 2022 and 2023 was published exactly a day before the preliminary data for growth in the first quarter of 2022.

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.

The Bulgarian government will spend over BGN 63 billion in 2022. For the first time, Bulgarian citizens can track the spending of their funds on a daily base in an accessible, interactive, and easy to use application.

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.

During the first week of the 47th National Assembly, an attempt was made to resume the Bulgarian constitutional debate by forming a temporary commission to deal with proposals for amendments in the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria.

The term “wage” and its size are very important in national discussions about labor markets, taxes, and insurance payments, but also as a part of international comparisons for investors deciding to build a factory or place investments in a specific country.

After a turbulent year and a total of three general elections, Bulgaria finally has a government. Much like the new power in Germany, it is far from a stable, single-party rule but rather a patchy, colorful coalition of small powers and former enemies.

The football season in Bulgaria has begun, and with it, a new contract for television rights has entered into force. The contract is for five seasons (until 2026), and the clubs, as announced by the Bulgarian Football Union (BFS) last year, will BGN earn 6.5 million each season. UEFA reports show that about 7% of the income of the First League teams in Bulgaria comes from television rights.

There is nothing better than a press conference of a minister announcing a new investor who has chosen Bulgaria for their new investment venture. This is also the dream of every mayor, although mayors do not have much to offer to potential investors. Ministers have the arsenal of the State budget at their disposal. Thus, they can use taxpayer money to offer incentives for companies and offer resultant advantages to a selected sector or region.

At the end of May, the IME wrote that it was high time for a ramp-up of vaccine efforts in Bulgaria. By this, we meant that the vaccination process should be made the first and foremost governmental priority, and that as many tools as possible should be sought and employed to speed up the pace. The reason was obvious. The country was substantially far behind achieving the set target – vaccinating 70% of the adult population by the end of August.