BSP leader Atanas Zafirov just dropped an ultimatum on his coalition buddies from GERB, and There Is Such A People. He said his party's gonna bounce from the government if they gut all the social stuff from the revised 2026 budget. That means no wage hikes, no pension bumps, and no maternity benefit increases that the three parties locked in together.
Zafirov called it reckless to roll into 2026 using last year's budget and said BSP will fight hard in the new budget talks to keep their social policies intact. He wants employers to back workers instead of freezing wages, especially with the eurozone entry coming up. His whole vibe was that Bulgaria needs real leadership to get through whatever's ahead, and ditching their promises to...
Environment Minister Manol Genov thinks they can still get Budget 2026 passed before the year ends, after Borisov told the PM and Finance Minister to pull it back. He says this is just continuing the same process rather than starting fresh, and MPs might need to work through Christmas to get it done.
Genov wants to make sure all the social benefits stay in place when they rework things. He mentioned how tough it is to explain different types of work in budget talks and thinks the coalition dropped the ball on messaging. He also brought up how he got a 20 percent pay bump for his department last year, but says it still wasn't enough to catch up where they need to be.
Kornelia Ninova from Rebellious Bulgaria went off on Facebook after Borisov said the government was pulling back Budget 2026 to redo it. She called out all the ministers and deputies who kept saying this was the only budget that could work, and asked what had changed since they were all pushing the same line before.
Ninova basically said they lied the whole time and predicted these same people would flip around with equal energy to defend whatever new budget comes out. She threw out some harsh words about politicians who sold out and will just dance to whatever tune their bosses play for them.
Council for Economic Analysis secretary Plamen Nenov told Bulgarian National Radio that the country needs gradual fiscal tightening since the economy is running hotter than its actual capacity, according to central bank numbers. The economist said raising VAT is not ideal because it would spike inflation in the short term, even though consolidation needs to happen somehow, and the real question becomes who ends up footing the bill for budget fixes.
The CEA dropped its third report looking at what joining the eurozone does to the economy. Nenov explained that cutting currency risk lowers interest rates and boosts asset values like housing and stocks which then pumps up wages plus investments across the board. Bulgaria already operates...
Sofia hosted the annual AFCEA TechNet conference, where three European Commission-funded defense projects got shown off. The FALCON system uses AI to catch high-level corruption by tracking luxury purchases and crypto transfers from government officials with suspicious connections. Biomarker monitoring project WEMOR checks military personnel's stress levels during training so commanders know when someone needs to be pulled from exercises before they break.
Professor Nikolay Stoyanov, from the academic community vice president role, said FALCON analyzes public procurement data to flag risky spending patterns, while WEMOR already ran tests with the Military University and Naval School. The third project, NEMO, translates military...
Lyulin district mayor Georgi Todorov told the Sofia Municipal Council that trash problems are coming back hard after the last ten days turned into a dumpster fire, with heaps piling up again. The region has 1,500 bins that need emptying daily to avoid a full meltdown but the system is not keeping up, and snow arriving next week could make everything worse.
Contracts for garbage pickup in three other districts expire at month end which might pull away whatever limited equipment exists. Todorov said the usual snow removal schedule that gets signed in October still has not happened, even though Lyulin needs at least six big plows ready when winter hits.
Sofia's mayor, Vasil Terziev, got his municipal restructuring plan rejected for the second time after city council members from everyone except PP-DB and Save Sofia voted against it or abstained. The proposal wanted to add a deputy mayor position focused on urban planning plus create specialized units for internal auditing, anti-corruption work and strategic communications.
Terziev told reporters he will submit the thing again with more data showing how other Bulgarian municipalities handle their structure after the report got shot down without much debate. The mayor expects chief architect Bogdana Panayotova to quit when her sick leave ends mid-December, since they have massive disagreements about how the architecture department...
GERB boss Boyko Borisov said talks with employers and unions are back on after the government yanked their budget proposal following street protests. Finance Ministry meetings kick off with business groups KRIB and BIA plus the two big labor unions Podkrepa and CITUB, to hash out details, with reps from all four coalition parties joining the discussions.
The tripartite council that includes Kiril Domuschiev, Dobri Mitrev, Dimitar Manolov and Lyuboslav Kostov will get working groups and the National Trade Union Congress restored. Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov pulled the 2026 budget earlier after thousands surrounded parliament, angry about higher taxes and social security contributions that were getting rammed through without proper...
Western outlets like AP and EuroNews covered massive Bulgarian protests where around 20k people surrounded parliament to block lawmakers voting on the 2026 budget that jacks up taxes and social security payments. PP-DB opposition coalition organized the rally against spending that hits almost 46 percent of GDP and gets funded by squeezing businesses plus workers while debt explodes.
Things got messy when protesters chucked fireworks and bottles at cops who allegedly gassed the crowd back, with people trying to flip a police van and smash MP vehicles during what started as a peaceful demonstration. Three officers got injured keeping order. The budget will probably pass anyway since the ruling coalition controls parliament, but...
