Education Minister Daniel Vulchev and Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski would not attend the negotiations with representatives of the teachers' unions and the strike committee on October 18, a Government press office statement said.

Statements by Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev during his press conference on October 17, after the meeting with representatives of the national strike committee and leaders of unions KNSB and KT Podkrepa, represented completely and correctly agreements reached at the meeting, the statement said.

During the closed meeting and in the presence of Stanishev, Education Minister Daniel Vulchev and Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski, all representatives of the strike committee agreed to the condition that continued negotiations would be based on a 650 leva average salary for teachers, to be reached by July 2008, as well as the increase in salaries for the non-pedagogical staff, the statement said.

The premise for the agreement reached was the realisation that large resources could be found in a reorganisation of the way education in Bulgaria was funded and run, the statement said.

This understanding and constructive character, the statement continued, gave reason to Stanishev to announce that an agreement had been reached between the unions and Government on what would be possible, and that this was the 650 leva by July 2008 variant.

After the press conference on October 17 and the next morning, union leaders and members of the strike committee announced there were mistakes in the calculations and they did not agree with the outcome of the negotiations. Renewed demands were set for a 100 per cent increase in salary for teachers per July 2008.

In the given situation, the Government press office announced, Vulchev and Oresharski would not attend the negotiations on October 18. The negotiations would be attended by representatives of the two ministries, who would present the agreement reached the day before, with analysis and calculations, the press office said.