Entering its second month in power, Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov’s Government has come under fire from opposition parties on the left and right for allegedly having no real plan to help the country out of the economic crisis.
 
Borissov and his ministers, who took office towards the end of July 2009 in a Cabinet made up solely of members of his party, have been unrelenting in their criticism of their predecessors for leaving Bulgaria’s public purse severely drained and for having been inert in the face of the crisis.
 
As August ended, Borissov came in for criticism, with Martin Dimitrov, leader of the right-wing Union of Democratic Forces, co-leader of the Blue Coalition and head of Parliament’s committee on the economy, saying that the Bulgarian Government was lagging behind in the implementation of measures to help the economy counter the crisis,
 
Daily Dnevnik said on September 1 2009 that Dimitrov identified shortening the VAT reimbursement period to a month-and-a-half as one of the measures that could provide a breath of fresh air for local businesses that are wrestling with the downturn.
 
The Blue Coalition has submitted a bill hoping to secure the go-ahead by GERB, which dominates the new government.
 
"Check-ups of the former leadership are important but taking measures to stave off corporate failures and safeguard jobs should be even higher on the to-do list," Dimitrov said, as quoted by Dnevnik.
 
Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) figures quoted by Dimitrov showed that the Stanishev cabinet had splashed out more than 600 million leva between July 1 and 10 alone.
 
The Blue Coalition will urge Parliament to order that the Bulgarian National Audit Office checks the Agriculture Fund and the environmental protection management programme. The latest revision of the agriculture fund dates back to 2007 and in 2008 the European Commission (EC) turned the tap on farming projects because of the absence of an efficient financial control system and objective audit.
 
Petar Dimitrov, who was the last economy and energy minister in the Stanishev cabinet, said that Borissov’s Government had "no anti-crisis measures and no anti-crisis programme" beyond "police measures" that had nothing to do with state management.
 
On the eve of Bulgaria’s July 5 2009 parliamentary elections, expectations were promoted that a Borissov government knew the recipe for getting out of the crisis, Petar Dimitrov said, as quoted by Bulgarian news agency Focus.
"Sixty days (sic) have passed since then and still nothing happens," Petar Dimitrov said.
 
Dragomir Stoinev, an MP for the Bulgarian Socialist Party-dominated Coalition for Bulgaria, said that instead of an appropriate policy and an anti-crisis programme, "there are still separate measures that are not reciprocally linked".
 
Focus quoted Roumen Ovcharov, leader of the Bulgarian Socialist Party in Sofia and also a former economy and energy minister in the Stanishev cabinet, as saying that the Borissov Cabinet’s anti-crisis programme was "mere talk", Focus reported.
 
On the idea of Borissov’s party GERB to break up the Bulgarian Energy Holding (BEH) and for the National Electric Company to be sold separately, Ovcharov said: "Who will buy shares in a company that is bound up in debt? BEH was established with three goals – co-ordination of energy policy of the country, concentration of the energy potential and concentration of intellectual might.
 
"However, none of these three goals has been realised. Bulgarian companies were driven into a serious economic and financial situation, and some of them sank in debt," Ovcharov said.
 
A different perspective was given by Milen Velchev, who was finance minister in the Simeon Saxe-Coburg administration that was in office from 2001 until 2005.
 
In an interview published by mass-circulation daily 24 Chassa on September 1 2009, Velchev said that the unpopular proposal to freeze wages next year was fully realistic.
 
Velchev said that Bulgaria was headed for a further economic downturn and probably deflation this year. Freezing wages would be to the benefit of working people and pensioners, he said. Reduction in incomes would be necessary for the state to be able to make payments without problems, according to Velchev.