The government would spend nearly 1.2 billion leva from the state budget surplus on social activities and infrastructure, the political council of the ruling coalition decided on September 5 after three hours of negotiations, Dnevnik daily quoted “participants in the meeting” as saying.

Currently, Bulgaria had accumulated a surplus of 4.2 billion leva.

A media statement by the Cabinet said that the surplus would be used in two main fields: social and investment. It would guarantee the social protection and life improvement of pensioners and additional funding for healthcare, education and security would be provided. On the other hand, the surplus would be used for modernisation of the road infrastructure, with a focus on Trakiya Highway.

According to Dnevnik’s sources, 60 per cent of the 1.2 billion leva would be used for social activities.

The council reached a political agreement that a large portion of the surplus would be used to endow the Silver Fund, which would guarantee a long-term stability of the pension system, the Cabinet’s media statement said. The fund had collected nearly one billion leva so far.

The political council of the ruling coalition also decided on the government’s priorities until the end of 2008. The priorities include meeting the recommendations in the European Commission’s interim reports; amendments in the law on political parties and elections, as well as adoption of tax laws and budget 2009, the media statement said.

Part of the laws to be discussed in Parliament referred to improvement of the control on European Union funds utilisation and overcoming of the weaknesses of judicial system, including the laws on public procurements, conflict of interest, lobbying, Penal Code, among others.

The budget for 2009 would focus on maintaining of the financial stability, improvement of Bulgarian economy competitiveness. The budget would clearly show the Cabinet’s priority policies for 2009: helping children, young families and pensioners and fighting grey economy, the media statement said.

As previously decided, three per cent of the surplus would be allocated for the fiscal reserve.

A working group of representatives of the three ruling parties would be assigned to prepare a plan for the utilisation of the rest of the surplus. The plan would be ready by mid-September and filed to Parliament for discussion.

Stanishev, Saxe-Coburg and Dogan said that the surplus utilisation would be “transparent, balanced and socially engaged”.