Bulgaria's Government was a wise one because it managed to find a proper balance between the country's economic prosperity and its care for the people, Social and Labour Policy Minister Emilia Maslarova told private broadcaster bTV on May 16 2008.
In the final year of the Government's term in office social policy meant one thing: raising the overall standard of living, she said. “We will continue implementing measures from our pre-election manifesto,” Maslarova noted.
One such measure was strengthening supervision of working conditions.
Malsarova promised that new stipulations would be “draconian”.
“We are currently working on amending legislation. For example, current fines of 1500 leva will be raised to 15 000 leva.
Employers will be subject to those fines if the General Labour Inspectorate (GLI) finds people working without labour contracts, one of the most common violation of the labour code, she noted.
Furthermore, GLI will be entitled to shut factories if employers fail to meet their recommendations.
On May 11 Maslarova announced changes in the health care, pensions and social security contributions. These included an increase in health insurance contributions from six to eight per cent of gross salary as of next year and a 10.35 per cent hike of pensions as of July 1 this year.
Another of the announced changes affected social security contributions.
Under the current system contributions have been payable by the employer and employee in a 60-40 share-out. Now the state will pay 12, the employer 10 and the employee eight percentage points of gross salary.
According to Finance Minister Palmen Oresharski, the changes would not trigger an increase of the overall social security burden because the higher health insurance contributions would be compensated by state contributions to social security payments.
On May 16 Maslarova said that employers should raised the minimum social security threshold by at least 20 per cent. “This is how we would be able to fulfil our obligations to pensioners and students,” she said.
