After the fiery and not quite unprejudiced debates, after the adduction of convincing arguments and even more convincing rebuttals, after doses of populism and outbursts of professionalism that went to their head, and all this with trimmings – earsplitting assurances of solicitude for the welfare of the country and of the Bulgarian nation - the MPs finally approved the corrections to the national budget and to the budget of the National Health Insurance Fund for the year submitted by the new cabinet.

Though it comes with a 4-month delay inherited from the two previous governments, this revision is, as Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov put it little more than a way to officially legitimize the errors, misconceptions and wavering of the previous administration. We are compelled to update the budget, but that is something that has been thrust upon us, it is not the policy we are pursuing, the new finance minister said.

The macroeconomic elements that have now been altered are so crucial as to affect the entire national economy and finances. For example, it is now officially acknowledged that the budget is over EUR 500 million short of financing for the public sector, i.e. national security, the social systems, healthcare, education, local and public administration, legislation etc. This means that the deficit for 2014 will reach the unacceptable by European standards 3.7 percent of the GDP – more than double the percentage set down by the law – and that will mean sanctions. But the shortage of this crucial, planned financing will somehow have to be compensated for because there is no way to stop public spending, most of all for services rendered by the private sector. Adding to this the money that has to be found for the Deposit Insurance Fund which, as the law stipulates, has to restore the savings up to EUR 100,000 to the clients of the Corporate Commercial Bank which went under, the hemorrhaging in public finance assumes gigantic proportions compared to Bulgaria’s modest capacity, leading directly to a rise in public debt with more public borrowing, which is planned to reach more than EUR 2.3 billion.

Most advanced countries in Europe and the world have budget deficits and public borrowing and frequently revise their national budgets. The problem with Bulgaria now is that a large part of the public spending is sunk into unreformed administrations like the Interior Ministry, public healthcare, university education, the judiciary – a problematic sector that has been the target of severe criticism inside the country as well as from Brussels. In these sectors money is spent with no transparency and highly inefficiently. Do not put off the politically hard reforms any longer, see them through, European Commission Vice President in charge of Budget and Human Resources Kristalina Georgieva appealed a few days ago.

Our government’s policy will be different, Bulgaria’s new Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov asserted and promised that this would become apparent in the coming days when the pubic budget for 2015 will be presented.

English Milena Daynova