“Doling out money gratuitously to people in need is impossible because the resources are limited. The government would come out of the crisis with a huge deficit,” Ivan Kostov, Prime Minister of Bulgaria in the 1997-2001 period said for the Bulgarian National Radio.

“According to the EU, the country’s GDP is going to go down by 7.2%. That means EUR 4.2 billion. There is no way the government can find the billions needed to compensate for all incomes. Calls for such a thing are populist. Even if it does find the money from somewhere, it couldn’t be absorbed and will only give rise to corruption,” Ivan Kostov said. He added that Bulgaria is not the only country where measures to address the damages are taken under pressure and urged for taxes not to be changed  mid-year.