I hope that the dialogue that you are maintaining in the Economic and Social Council will be carried over to the National Assembly. This was stated by the Speaker of the Parliament Natalia Kiselova, who greeted the participants in the last plenary session of 2024 at ESC. Natalia Kiselova stressed that sometimes dialogue is difficult, but she is a patient person and will try to achieve it. She expressed the hope that after the New Year, when parliamentary committees are formed, the Council will assist them with its analyses.
“Your body is an example of the fact that people, representatives not only of professional and trade union organisations, but also of employers and civil society, can talk, listen to each other and reach an agreement,” she believes.
The President of ESC Zornitsa Rusinova thanked that one of the first visits of the President of the 51st National Assembly was to the Council. She noted that he has high expertise and gives the already agreed opinion of employers, trade unions and civil society organisations on extremely important issues. During the meeting, the council members voted on the ESC Plan of Action for 2025, which provides for work on topics such as minimum wage, tax system, energy poverty, education, artificial intelligence and other issues important for the social and economic life of the country.
Policies for the formation of catching-up economic growth should be the focus of the executive and legislative authorities, the Economic and Social Council said in an opinion on “Policies to stimulate catching-up economic growth in Bulgaria”, which it adopted at its plenary session. Maria Mincheva – member of ESC Group I and Lyuboslav Kostov – member of ESC Group II were appointed as rapporteurs, and Shteryo Nozarov and Petar Mishev were appointed as external experts.
Bulgaria needs to work systematically to improve its positioning on all key indicators that measure the competitiveness of the Bulgarian economy, including labour productivity, innovation, share of graduates in STEM subjects, digital transformation of the economy, ability to attract foreign direct investment, public capital expenditure as % of GDP, carbon intensity of the economy, energy intensity of industry, improvement of the institutional environment and conditions for the development of the economy.
ESC recommends that the state budget be used to stimulate investment activity aimed at structural change in the economy, not just at ensuring the ongoing functioning of public systems.
“The basis of high incomes should be catching-up economic growth, the value added created and its efficient and fair distribution and redistribution, the stimulation of sectors with high value-added production, leading also to increased productivity. The low-tech level of the economy, its high energy and carbon intensity show that there is not enough effort for a transformational change in the structure of the Bulgarian GDP”, the authors of the opinion write. And they specify that a sustainable industrial policy based on the best available technologies is the cornerstone that ensures the transformation of industrial sectors and their supply chains to become competitive.
Bulgaria can meet the last criterion for joining the euro area – the one on price stability – in December this year at the latest, says a declaration of ESC on Bulgaria’s accession to the euro area, adopted at the same plenary session.
ESC urges the Bulgarian authorities to prepare as soon as possible to implement the National Assembly’s decision and, after meeting the price stability criterion, to request extraordinary convergence reports from the European Commission (EC) and the European Central Bank (ECB) within two weeks of implementation.
