BNB board member Karimanski: Bulgaria's plan to Brussels lacks steps on tax arrears
A member of the central bank's governing council criticised Bulgaria's fiscal plan. IMF chief Georgieva also urged lasting rather than one-off measures to cut the deficit.
Archive image · Photo: Ivanov id / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5 (cropped and resized)
Lyubomir Karimanski, a member of the Governing Council of the Bulgarian National Bank, criticised the plan Bulgaria sent to the European Commission. It lacks measures to collect overdue obligations to the National Revenue Agency, he told BNT on Sunday. "More than 800 million could come in from there, I guarantee you," Karimanski said. He added that the plan lacks the detail of a state budget, for instance on individual defence expenditures.
Bulgaria is in an excessive deficit procedure after its 2025 deficit exceeded 3%. The deficit stood at about 2.8% in August, and Karimanski does not expect it to exceed 5% by year-end, as the state will probably not spend all planned capital expenditure. He called for automatic pay rises written into sector laws to be moved into the budget.
IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva told BTA that Bulgaria's deficit is 5% of GDP and the country should find ways to reduce it. One-off steps such as the proposed excess profits tax can help but are not a systemic solution, she said at the close of the IMF and World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok.