Finance Minister Petkova defends the parameters of the 2025 draft budget

By: bnr.bg

Jan 07 2025
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Finance Minister Petkova defen

Caretaker Minister of Finance Lyudmila Petkova defended the parameters of the 2025 draft budget before the members of the National Assembly Committee on Budget and Finance. Minister Petkova explained that the 2025 Budget reflects the policies of recent years. Although the expenditures significantly exceed the revenues by 18 billion BGN (EUR 9.2 billion), the caretaker government submitted a budget with a deficit of 3% of the GDP, Lyudmila Petkova said. She reminded that the implementation of the National Recovery and Resilience Plan will end in mid-2026.

So far, Bulgaria has received two payments under the Recovery and Resilience Plan, totaling 2.7 billion BGN (EUR 1.38 billion), while 7.8 billion leva (EUR 3.99 billion) are yet to be received. According to her, the main problem of the plan is its wrong overall philosophy. "From the very beginning, the plan included difficult reforms that cannot be implemented", said Minister Petkova, noting that other EU member states included such difficult reforms at a later stage, reported BGNES. Lyudmila Petkova emphasized that Bulgaria is the only country that has not adopted the RePowerEU chapter. She also noted that the gray economy in Bulgaria is over 32% of the GDP, while in Croatia and Romania it is 28% of the GDP. According to her, "chaotic policies and legislation have been adopted in the country in recent years".