Bulgaria

Already in May, the National Statistical Institute of Bulgaria announced long-awaited news: on a monthly basis, the general consumer price index recorded a decline for the first time since the beginning of the war, and in June, this trend continued, even more noticeably. This has also been accompanied by a cooling down of the annual price change, which has fallen well below its peak since autumn 2022.

New data from Bulgaria’s National Statistical Institute (NSI) shows that for the time period 2020-2022, the life expectancy of the population on average is 71.9 years. The data examines mortality over three-year periods and for the first time, it comprehensively covers the rapid spread and high mortality resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic in Bulgaria.

The migration crisis in 2015 posed a significant challenge for Europe. It has also become a contributor to legitimizing political action in Hungary, as well as in Poland after the parliamentary elections held in the autumn of 2015.

The Bulgarian government banned the imports of twenty agricultural goods from Ukraine. This act and the related arguments for restricting free trade supported by the government, some politicians, media outlets, and interested businesses, show why the Institute for Market Economics has been debunking economic illusions and providing answers, in times of poor knowledge breeding poor policies, for more than 30 years.

At least once a year Eurostat confirms through fresh data that Bulgaria is the poorest nation in the EU. More specifically, we are talking about comparisons of GDP per capita according to purchasing power parity.

Several years of caretaker governance, frequent elections, and inability to form a stable, legitimate, and broadly supported coalition suffice for breaking the spirit of many who believe Bulgaria could thrive as a proper democracy, and the result of the April 2023 general election also points in the same direction.

The Bulgarian population pyramid has essentially flipped since the beginning of the transition in the 1990s – back then the share of children (aged 15 and below) was 21% and the share of pensioners (65 and up) was 14%.

In this episode, we talk about democratic backsliding and why does it matter for the EU, the issue with Bulgaria and Romania, EU tools to address democratic backsliding among its members, and whether the EU is capable of using its tools more effectively to prevent it.

For millennia humans have been fighting for all this against the randomness of tyranny, the dominance of strengths, privilege, and discretion over common rules and freedoms, defended by just laws. They have always wanted to live in such a way that it is clear what belongs to them and what belongs to others, contracts are not broken, what is borrowed is later returned, and the ruler is punished if he steals, lies or mistreats.

In 2004 the Institute for Market Economics (IME) presented its first Alternative Budget. Each year since that we have suggested an annual budgetary frame with lower taxes, more effective spending, bold reforms, and lower state interference. At the beginning of 2023, Bulgaria will not have a state budget drafted by a regular government and voted on by a parliamentary majority.