05.06.2026
The European Commission’s proposal for excessive deficit procedure against Bulgaria is an expressive judgement on all previous administrations that sought to maintain a 3% deficit with different exercises with the budget. This was stated by Prime Minister Rumen Radev in Montenegro in his answer to a media question about the condition of the national budget.
The Prime Minister enumerated a number of vicious practices that led to the present situation: systematic decapitalization of state-owned companies and pumping out of liquidity from the businesses, delayed VAT payments, advance payments of taxes due. In addition, he mentioned the large expenditure for suspicious overpriced public procurement contracts. “This is the outcome of this policy and we see it today,” Rumen Radev said. He expressed his hope that the political parties in Parliament would be mature and constructive so that public finances can be strengthened with joint efforts.
In the Prime Minister’s view, the great mismatch between the Brussels and the Sofia data is to be attributed to payments that were withheld in recent years and that “pump up” the hidden deficit. “Invoices are now produced about work done and huge unsettled amounts of over Euro 2.2 billion are reported,” the Prime Minister noted. These expenses will have to be covered and it is precisely the hidden deficit,” the Prime Minister pointed out.
In his answer to a media question about the case of the former director of the Bulgarian Development Bank (BDB) Stoyan Mavrodiev, Prime Minister Rumen Radev said that on the previous day he spoke with Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vučić. “He assured me that the Serbian authorities will treat our request for extradition with utmost responsibility,” Prime Minister Rumen Radev said further.
