/ world today news/ Interview of Dragomira Stanoeva with Emil Hersev, economist
Do you think the protesters’ demand for a civilian quota on regulatory bodies is realistic?
I’m old school and I think there’s a 100% civilian quota in regulatory bodies, and I don’t know that we have regulatory bodies to import them from overseas and Mars and I don’t know from where. We have a civil quota, which, whatever the meaning, started to replace the rule of law with the Jamahiriya, that is, a state whose representation is direct democracy, this has been proven not to work. We have seen the inventor of the Jamahiriya create the new Allah.
Could the non-payment of bills, which the protesters are calling for, create new problems?
Not paying bills – yes, it definitely creates very serious economic problems. In a market economy, bills are paid and when they are not paid, enforcement takes place. In general, the purpose of a market economy society is to ensure that the bills are paid.
Look, I understand that thanks to such a policy, we have a serious lag not so much in the income of the population, by the way this is also not particularly true. We have a rather serious degeneration of the income structure thanks to unemployment. This is not widely understood. Everyone prefers the simple statement: I don’t have enough money, without asking why he doesn’t have enough money and why, for example, and where the problem actually comes from.
Naturally, the high unemployment is also the reason for the suppression of the current incomes of those employed in /…/.
For example, just last year the incomes of the employed increased by 16%, yes, but unemployment has grown very seriously, and in addition, it must be taken into account that here unemployment will weigh approximately twice as much as in Central European countries, because at our working people support twice as many unemployed people as in the average European country.
But, anyway, these are macroeconomic processes that I wouldn’t expect anyone to be able to analyze. This is a government job and I think this problem has been seriously underestimated.
Did you expect so many people to riot against high electricity bills and unemployment?
If we think of similar processes in countries where it happens, say Spain, Greece – there the dissatisfaction is absolutely analogous to that in our country and we see it, it is expected. This is what mistakes in economics lead to when they are made. These mistakes are not only the Bulgarian government’s. Immediately I want to pay attention – to a large extent, a large part of them are imported.
How do you comment on the resignation of the members of the DKEVR? Don’t you think they somehow get away with this situation?
Look, I personally at the very first mention, for example, that someone /…/ just because he went out on the street and shouted louder than everyone else, claims that everyone from the SKEVR should go to prison, without it being clear just for what they should enter and without anyone proving what criminal thing they have done. I would resign myself, by the way, I doubt you would do it any other way.
For example, if someone shouts under the windows: we want all the journalists from the KROSS agency to be put in prison, because I don’t know what they have done, for example, they have defied the government, what will you do, except resign? That’s what a normal person does.
However, one thing remains, that by resigning, he is almost not running away from responsibility. Still, he’s looking to clear his name while it’s time.
It cannot be true with shirking responsibility when it comes to civil servants, professionals, not politicians.
The civil servant – he resigns and sits at the desk and performs his duties. He is not running away from anywhere.
It’s saying: ok, I see, you find that I’m not up to the job, I was wrong, here’s your resignation, I’m waiting to see who you put in to do the job better than me. This means the resignation of a professional employee.
So you approve of their resignation?
I find it the only possible behavior of a normal person, I would not do otherwise.
When you resign, people still have a doubt…
There is doubt in Bulgaria about absolutely everyone. We have brought ourselves to the point of doubting absolutely every single one of us. We have doubts about the one who sells tomatoes in the market, that they are not Bulgarian, but in fact he is lying to us that they are Bulgarian, maybe they are Greek, we have doubts from the one who drives the tram to the one who drives the state. We have such doubts. We have suspicions that whoever is driving the train is stealing gas… Any. There is simply nothing left that is beyond doubt. We doubt everyone, that’s the situation.
What solution do you see in the current economic situation in the country?
I can see a solution, of course, because that’s my job, but it will in no case be something that is born only verbally and in no case will it be within less than three or four hours of explanation. There is a solution, yes. For example, I could, within one, three or four hours, set out the principles on which I would look for a solution, not the solution itself, it requires accounts, calculations, a database of information that we do not have, because only the administration has them . I don’t work for the state right now, thank God.
At least some quick fix now?
There are no quick solutions in the economy. This is economics. It makes sense to tell you now: let’s take some money from someone and eat it – this is simply not a solution at all. There is no one willing to give you some money and let us eat it.
Even when government loans are contracted, then negotiated, they are always for a specific purpose and on specific terms. There are pre-conditions that are placed on every single loan. A loan to give to the one who wants 50 BGN each, they will not solve the issue.
I asked you because now the economic situation is very difficult…
The economic situation is not very dire, this is simply not true. The fact that, for example, at the moment the Bulgarian people have reached the threshold where they express their opinion in an open, loud way, with protests, does not mean that the economic situation has changed and that it is severe and catastrophic. These are simply false statements. The civil tension will naturally escalate after it unwittingly overthrows the government. It always escalates, the more successes this kind of civil movement achieves, the more it will escalate.
Because if it is thought that now, if they will give him some money, he will receive /…/ of the income, he will receive. And if it happens to get it, it will ask for a quadruple.
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