Bulgaria's top court upholds 2026 budget but strikes down parts

Bulgaria's Constitutional Court on Tuesday rejected a request to declare the 2026 State Budget Act unconstitutional in its entirety. The case was brought by members of the 52nd National Assembly and the Ombudsman. According to news.bg, the 11 judges reasoned in part that the deficit ceiling of 3 percent of GDP is partly a self-imposed statutory limit rather than a direct constitutional requirement.

Among other things, the court struck down two provisions introduced through the budget's transitional and final clauses, BTA and news.bg reported: changes to how length of service is calculated under the Labour Code, which news.bg said would have hit part-time workers hardest, and a rule pegging the pay of judges, prosecutors and investigators to 60 percent of a lawmaker's base salary. The latter violated the constitutionally protected stability of their status, the court found. Five judges filed dissenting opinions.

The ruling takes effect three days after publication in the State Gazette. Opposition politician Asen Vassilev called on Prime Minister Rumen Radev to explain why parts of his budget had been found unconstitutional, saying the court had confirmed that all provisions his camp had challenged were indeed unconstitutional, BTA reported.