Bulgaria's Cabinet will tweak the 2009 Budget bill to adjust it to the global economic downturn, ruling coalition MPs told Dnevnik. The decision follows more than a month of seething attacks from the opposition and analysts, slamming the bill for what they called a far-fetched macroeconomic framework given the rising pressures on the Bulgarian economy as the crisis deepens.
According to the new draft, the economic growth target will be 1.2-2 per cent, compared to the 4.7 per cent in the initial draft of the Finance Ministry, approved by the Government in late October.
The lower forecast will mean axing two billion leva from the Government spending if lawmakers stick to the agreed figure of 40 per cent of gross domestic product.
Parliament budget committee deputy chairperson, Roumen Ovcharov from the senior partner in the ruling coalition, the Bulgarian Socialist Party, and former finance minister Milen Velchev, now deputy leader of National Movement for Stability and Progress, one of the junior partners in the coalition, declined to say which spending areas will be trimmed.
Ruling coalition sources told Dnevnik there will be spending cuts in all areas.
Ovcharov pledged to talk to Bulgarian Industrial Association chairperson Bozhidar Danev to try and included businesses demands into the budget, website mediapool.bg reported.
Centre-right opposition Union of Democratic Forces MP Martin Dimitrov said that the first thing to do was to cut spending by shutting down the emergency situations and administrative reform ministries.
The decision to re-draft the Budget bill comes just a day after the European Commission confirmed an earlier decision to revoke the accreditation of two Government agencies responsible for contracting funds given to Bulgaria under the European Union's Phare pre-accession aid programme, resulting in the loss of 220 million euro. Key infrastructure projects would be finished using Budget funds, politicians from the ruling coalition have said, but Bulgaria could be foreced to return some money to Brussels.
Source: Dnevnik
