Bulgaria's State Budget Not to Be Overhauled as MPs End Last Workday

Lawmakers from the ruling Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) had vowed to block any vote on the amendments. Photo by BGNES

Lawmakers in Bulgaria's Parliament decided not to discuss an update of the 2014 state budget.

As their emergency session held Monday kicked off, MPs voted that the motion initially proposed by the Council of Ministers would not be included into the agenda.

The meeting itself was called for a final decision whether to review the State Budget of the Republic of Bulgaria Act before the National Assembly is dissolved on Wednesday.

President Rosen Plevneliev has repeatedly called on lawmakers to approve the amendments at the session to allow more freedom to the upcoming caretaker government.

Monday's vote, backing a proposal to remove the update from the agenda, received a majority of 78 to 24, and only one MP abstained.

Last week the bill was adopted at a first reading, but center-right GERB, the biggest group within the Parliament, withdrew its support.

During the last session, the opposition also renounced a previously introduced bill which would have seen "additional" competences granted to the interim cabinet, authorizing it to sign international agreements and to receive loans on international markets.

Yordan Tsonev from the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (DPS), the junior partner in the outgoing socialist-liberal cabinet (the only party which supported the update), predicted the bill would be tabled again "in the autumn", during the tenure of the next elected government.

During its last session Parliament also granted additional allocations to the cash-strapped National Health Insurance Fund (NZOK).

Earlier on Monday the Budget and Finance Committee at Bulgaria's Parliament gave the green light to budget amendments at NZOK.

The fund will receive another BGN 225 M and will be able to...

Continue reading on: