Let the society decide and say how taxes can be low and at the same time the state can fund “more and more public sectors, which are not modernised and developed as they were 15 years ago”, Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said while opening the school year in the University of National and World Economy.

Stanishev’s statement referred to the teachers’ protests demanding at higher salaries, mediapool.bg reported.

When the state “allocates money for a certain system or group of people, this money most probably hurt someone else, Bulgaria’s medics, nurses, army men or another group,” Stanishev said.

The PM said that the teachers union’s demands are “quite extreme,” but he believed in the common sense of the teachers in Bulgaria.

The unions demand 100 per cent increase of the salaries from October 1 2007, while the Cabinet offers gradual increase of 52 per cent by July 2008.

Stubbornness and ultimatum as an end in itself could destroy social balances in the country. Everyone who issues ultimatums should consider this, Stanishev said.

Reports of the World Bank show that the quality of Bulgarian education has lowered. High-school education was and will continue to be a priority for the Cabinet, the PM said. As a result, the Cabinet proposed a package of measures for modernisation of the system.

Finance Minister Plamen Oresharski, who accompanied Stanishev at the ceremony, said that more money would be allocated for education in the 2008 budget, but refused to mention numbers as the budget has not been approved.