/ world today news/ Rumen Gechev, a member of parliament from the PG of “BSP for Bulgaria”, in a conversation with Denitsa Gatsinska in the program “What do the Sofia elected officials do for Sofia?” on Radio K2, stated positions on the following topics:
The problem of poverty in Bulgaria.
Rumen Gechev stated that the problem of poverty exists throughout the world, but in our country it has worsened in recent years. He continued that according to the economic Gini index, which shows how the national wealth is distributed, in the last 10 years Bulgaria is the country with the fastest growing social polarization, that is, the fastest increase of the poor and the fastest erosion of the middle class. This is due to several facts. One of them is that in our country the wage, despite its nominal increase in recent years, lags behind the growth of wages in other EU countries. As a result, there are many working poor in our country, and according to this indicator we are the worst not only in the EU, but also in the whole of Europe. This places us last in terms of living standards in the EU.
Rumen Gechev continued that another important reason for our poverty is that Borisov’s third government does not have a clearly defined economic program. The government relies only on the Budget Law, which is passed in Parliament. “In it, they express their dreams of what the budget should look like at the end of the year. But this government does not have any program for the development of the individual sectors of the Bulgarian economy! There is no program on how to attract additional foreign investments!”, the representative from “BSP for Bulgaria” was emphatic.
Rumen Gechev explained that last year’s foreign investments were 10 times less compared to those of the last year before the crisis, which shows that foreign investors have a very poor assessment of the current government. “We even got to the point that the state-owned company CEZ from the Czech Republic, which operated in our country for years after the privatization, and this is actually not privatization, but the purchase of the Bulgarian state-owned company, even they are leaving. And pay attention, it should be read carefully. Why are they leaving, what came out of the publications in the Czech press, a part of which was rather shyly translated into Bulgaria? Well, the managers of the state CEZ say that they have given up on the reality in Bulgaria, that they can no longer work in this corrupt environment, that they cannot find a common language with the Bulgarian government!”, he was categorical. Rumen Gechev. He explained that to this fact we have to add the strong contraction of the funds from the cohesion funds after just a few years and the approaching maturities of the loans that Borisov’s governments took, on which we will have to pay 1.2 billion per year only the interest. As a result, in just a few years, the budget will be burdened more by just paying off the national debt, foreign investors will have withdrawn, and EU programs will be severely curtailed. We have no answer from the current government about what measures it is taking to prepare our country for this situation. “It seems to me that they are going to throw in the towel and leave it to subsequent governments to sort out the mess they have made!” The good news is that by all accounts it seems that they will not reach the shore until the end of the mandate, and they should not have, after as you can see a lot of contradictions have accumulated, the dissatisfaction in the country is escalating, the dissatisfaction of the Bulgarians with this administration is growing with every day that passes, Bulgaria’s partners are nervous, as a result of which it seems to me that this government is a passenger!”, he was categorical Rumen Gechev.
What will Bulgaria do after the shrinking of cohesion funds?
“The government is proud of the absorption of the European funds, but do we have a vision of what we will do when the European funds end?” Does the BSP have a ready program and a vision of what Bulgaria will do when the European funds run out?” asked the presenter Denitsa Gacinska. Rumen Gechev answered that first the role of these European funds was greatly exaggerated. He explained that Bulgaria’s budget annually receives about 3.5 billion under various EU programs. We also pay an annual membership fee of BGN 1 billion. So we are net relying on BGN 2.5 billion from the EU. The annual GDP of Bulgaria is about BGN 100 billion. According to some more precise estimates, the money that Bulgarians send from abroad is no less than 3 billion euros. This is because the central bank registers transfers of Bulgarians from abroad that are at least 2,500 euros. And many Bulgarians abroad transfer smaller amounts to their relatives or bring money when they come on holidays. So the accounts show that the money from the European funds is twice less than the funds that Bulgarian citizens abroad transfer to their relatives. “That is why we also criticize the government, because apart from talking to us from morning to night about Euro-Atlantic values and the role of the EU, which we must respect, they do not give an answer to the question of what else they do, apart from the money that Europe gives in the agreement with Bulgaria as an EU member state and what kind of transfers all EU members receive, especially in Eastern Europe, where the cohesion policy is aimed and where this government has no merit. And therefore, to the question of what you are doing apart from these aids that come from the EU and especially what we do in 2-3 years, when we find ourselves on a green meadow and there will be no such aids, foreign investors move out of Bulgaria, then we what will we rely on for economic development? And they have no answer to the question. After they don’t have an answer to the question, they have to leave!”, concluded Rumen Gechev your conversation with Denitsa Gatsinska in the program “What do the Sofia elected officials do for Sofia?” on Radio K2 on 24 April 2018
#government #answer #years #cohesion #funds #shrink #foreign #investors #withdraw
