PM: Government allocates BGN 52 milion for Christmas bonuses to pensioners

The government will allocate nearly 52 million BGN for Christmas bonuses to pensions. Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borissov said on 14^th of November at the beginning of the government’s weekly meeting, that 1,269,000 pensioners will receive bonuses to their pensions.

Along with this amount, Borissov said that since the start of his third term in office, over 200 million BGN have already been allocated to pensioners in Bulgaria, and during the time of his three terms in office, more than half a billion BGN have been allocated for the Bulgarian pensioners.

He described the budget for 2019 as the most up-to-date and "most generous budget since the beginning of the transition period in the country". He also thanked EC Vice President Frans Timmermans for the way he yesterday in the European Commission spoke on the progress report on Bulgaria under the CVM. His words, according to the Prime Minister, were objective, and he insisted on the socialists in Bulgaria to understand why Europe is assessing what is being done in the country and that is not happening inside Bulgaria.

For the first time, according to PM Borissov, since the beginning of of the progress reports under the CVM process, three of the six benchmarks in the last year's recommendations were closed and one of them was related to the fight against organized crime.

If the Dutch government reads the report carefully, it is very likely that by the end of the EC's mandate in October next year Bulgaria will be admitted to Schengen at least by air, the prime minister said.

Boyko Borissov said there is no wonder that European partners are also talking about media freedom. For this reason, he called for a broad debate on freedom of the media in Bulgaria to take place, involving also EU commissioners. He pointed out that many media in Bulgaria speak exactly what they want and strongly opposed the suggestions that there were influences on any media in Bulgaria:

Boyko Borisov, Prime Minister: It is not possible at a time when we have been “besieged” for weeks, and at the same time live coverages showing middle fingers gestures and protesters calling mebersw of the cabinet "dead meat", "rubbish", and somebody else at the same time to come out and say that there is no freedom of the media. This is not censored and is repeated every night in the most watched time.

The PM said that any defendant in our country can make a site only for one night and then again say that someone censures him. At the same time, the tabloid news and fake news in our country are countless, he added.

Boyko Borissov also commented on the issue of higher taxes on old cars and the resistance of mayors against GERB's decision to withdraw the proposal for these taxes.

Boyko Borissov, Prime Minister: I speak to the GERB parliamentary group not as prime minister but as the chairman of my party that I have established. That's why I arranged a meetingwith them yesterday about the two topics that are currently being discussed. One is to raise the tax on old cars by 6 to 10 BGN. I told them to return it, but the mayors opposed it. Because they say the main attack on us in the cities is the polluted air. If we do not start these steps at one point, at some point it may turn out to have a cemetery of diesel cars.

On the topic of fuel prices, the prime minister also made a comment:

Boyko Borissov: I have instructed the Finance Minister to make changes to regulation 18 and when people buy petrol at petrol stations, they should be able to see a breakdown of the price: how much is the production price, excise duty, VAT, i.e. how the price is formed.

The PM also said he disagreed with the words of President Rumen Radev, who yesterday refused a meeting to the Chair of Parliament’s Budget committee Menda Stoyanova and Finance minister Vladislav Goranov on the grounds that he was at the end of the lawmaking process. To that end, Borissov asked why Rumen Radev accepted the oposition BSP for a meeting and listened to the party's vision for the future of the country, and did not want to hear GERB about such important issues for the country.