Deficit row: finance ministry rejects GERB claim of data manipulation
GERB accuses the government of shifting road agency spending into 2025 to lower the 2026 deficit. The finance ministry calls the claims unfounded.
Graphic: TERRA WORLD NEWS (own graphic based on the sources listed)
Bulgaria's finance ministry has rejected opposition party GERB's accusation that it is manipulating budget data. There is no mechanism to change the data or dates of certificates and invoices already issued, or to move them into the previous year, the ministry said, adding that this was easy to verify. Claims of "oral instructions" contradicted all legally established procedures, and the Audit Office works independently.
Earlier, GERB MPs Temenuzhka Petkova and Nikolay Nankov told parliament their party had alerted the European Commission. According to them, the Road Infrastructure Agency, on oral instructions from the finance ministry, is preparing documents that shift work from 2026 into the closed 2025 budget year. The aim, they said, is to raise the 2025 deficit and lower the 2026 one.
GERB cites a draft Audit Office report on the agency, which it says shows no such invoices or approved certificates. That disproves the ruling Progressive Bulgaria party's claim of "invoices in drawers", Petkova said. Neither side's claims have been independently verified so far.