Economic and fiscal policy

Vladislav Goranov has decided to become a lobbyist. This is the gist of the news that the former finance minister has decided to establish a consulting firm after his resignation from the GERB government. All doubts about a potential conflict of interest aside, hardly anyone can be seriously surprised by such news. Still …

Today, Prime Minister Borissov announced a new package of economic measures to combat the crisis worth 2 billion leva, with a strong emphasis on higher healthcare spending and social spending for pensioners and the unemployed. Although these social measures are not particularly large-scale in themselves, they signal a very wrong approach …

After hundreds of sips of coffee with "sugar", Prime Minister Borisov triumphantly returned to Sofia a few days ago and declared. The Prime Minister did not hesitate to boast that the negotiations on the European Recovery Fund and the next EU Budget ended with a definite success for Bulgaria and almost personally he ...

Author: Steve Hanke Earlier this year, we witnessed a dramatic slowdown in Bulgaria’s headlong rush to abandon the leva and adopt the euro. Prime Minister Boyko Borisov sensed that Bulgarian society was not in favor of being included in the European Monetary Mechanism ERM-II. The year 1997 was both the worst and the best …

|Full text of the analysis| The purpose of this analysis is to review and assess a specific part of the "Action Plan with measures addressing the main problem areas hindering the growth of investments", adopted by the Council of Ministers with the latest revision in 2019. And more precisely, a measure from this plan, relating to ...

Congratulations on your new (quasi-)state bank. At least 1/4 of it. As of yesterday, FIB is already practically 26% owned by the Republic of Bulgaria. In 2 weeks it will become official. The pornographic story has been played out, in which the former financial chief of FIB is appointed governor of the state-owned Bulgarian Development Bank, in order to pour …

Author: Yaroslav Romanchuk, original publication from 14.04.2020 The global coronavirus epidemic has significantly accelerated the crisis trends of the modern world. The monetary and fiscal policy measures proposed by international organizations (IMF, World Bank, OECD, UN) and G7 governments after emerging from the global recession of 2008-2009 had a short-term positive effect …

Author: Yaroslav Romanchuk, original publication from 14.04.2020 The world economy is once again threatened by an unprecedented global recession, unemployment of 1.3 billion people in the world, a debt crisis, budget holes, defaults and other scourges of the multi-layered systemic crisis. “A crisis like no other” – said IMF President Kristalina Georgieva …

Let’s start with an important clarification. The purpose of this article is to refute some of the main arguments against the planned reduction of VAT from 20% to 9% specifically for the restaurant sector, which was announced by Prime Minister Borisov this week. The purpose is not to defend proposed VAT cuts for other …

The German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe has created one of the most serious problems for both the European Court of Justice and the European Central Bank in their entire history. This happened with a decision examining the legality of the ECB’s main asset purchase program, or so-called quantitative easing, called the Public Sector Purchase Programme …