No failure yet. This is what Asen Vassilev, the co-chairman of “We continue the change” said in the program “Speak Now” on BNT, on the occasion of the words of the Acting Minister of Finance, Rositsa Velkova, that Bulgaria will not enter the Eurozone from January 1, 2024.
I do not understand why the official cabinet does not want the convergent report of the European Commission. There is time for the necessary laws to be adopted by the next National Assembly. Let’s not assume what will be written in the report. As for the inflation criterion, inflation is starting to decline. We can fulfill all the criteria, said Vassilev.
According to him, the adoption of the anti-corruption legislation failed because someone wanted to extend an umbrella over a certain insurance company.
In response to a question, he pointed out that the measures taken by the “Petkov” government did not raise inflation. We are a small and open economy. Inflation in Bulgaria is higher than in Europe because we are poorer. At the same time, there was an increase in real production, regardless of prices, which has not happened for many years, the PP co-chairman noted.
He also commented on the indignation of the “Education” union at his words “When you let teachers walk around in tights with holes, it’s normal that we don’t have normal teachers in the schools and now new staff are just entering”.
I didn’t remind the teachers of this, I reminded the politicians who, with the extended budget law, refused to vote on our proposal to keep salaries at 125% of the average salary and froze teachers’ incomes. I want to apologize to the teachers if they felt affected, but the truth is that for too long Bulgarian education and Bulgarian teachers were the last priority of this country when they were left on minimum wages, Asen Vassilev.
The truth is that if we don’t take care of teachers, there will be no workforce in the future and that will really bankrupt the state, he added.
GERB did one good thing by saying that teacher salaries will be a priority and become 125% of the average. We have built on that policy and done everything possible to keep teacher salaries adequate for inflation. And what happened – our proposal was criticized in the budget committee precisely by GERB, because the state would go bankrupt. GERB blamed their own politics, Vassilev said.
We have shown that a real European policy can be made without raising taxes, and there is money in the state. It can be seen that when there is no corruption, there is money, he added.
Asen Vasilev announced that in his capacity as acting Minister of Finance in 2021, he had information about inquiries from the US about certain people and companies from Bulgaria. The requests coincided with the release of the first “Magnitsky” sanctions list, and this gave him reasons to suspect that a second such list with specific names was being prepared.
We know that even as a cabinet, when the first sanctions came out, there was a request from the US Treasury Department for certain names and companies. They were conducting investigations and we have passed on the information that is within the purview of the relevant services. This is official information. The exchange of information flows between the partner services, he said, recalling that for two years the Bulgarian services did not receive information from their partners because of the hacking breach in the NRA, but trust was subsequently restored.
Sanctions have been talked about since last summer, but they depend on the signature of the US president. If someone tells you exactly when he will put his signature, in my opinion, they are lying to you, commented the former finance minister.
The co-chairman of the PP pointed out that the cooperation with the other parties after the elections will depend on the extent to which the political forces are ready to rid themselves of corrupt practices.
Asked if he will manage PP together with GERB, Asen Vassilev said: “No, I don’t think so.”
