Ivaylo

Commercial transit trucks are backed up several kilometers at on the Macedonian side of the border with Bulgaria, the Interior Ministry has said.

Macedonia is now considered an alternative route as the blockade at the Bulgaria-Greece border continues.

Up to 15% of the beggars roaming the streets of Sweden are Bulgarian citizens, Bulgaria's Labor and Social Policy Minister Ivaylo Kalfin has said.

In an interview with the Bulgarian National Radio, Kalfin has announced that a joint action plan will be drafted by Bulgaria and Sweden to fight begging in the streets of Swedish towns and cities.

Bulgaria's Deputy Prime Minister and Social Policy Minister Ivaylo Kalfin is convening a meeting of the National Council for Tripartite Cooperation (NCTC) on May 26 on the minimum wage level in 2015.

Bulgarian Deputy Prime Minister Ivaylo Kalfin said during the parliamentary control on Friday that more than half of Bulgarian pensioners live below the poverty line.

Kalfin stated that at the end of 2014 over 1 228 000 people or 56.4 % of Bulgarian pensioners lived below the poverty line.

Bulgaria's government has allocated an additional sum of BGN 40 M to the state-owned Bulgarian State Railways (BDZ) company to prevent staff cuts and cancellations of trains.

The move was necessitated by protests in different regions of the country over 38 cancelled trains which caused major inconvenience to people relying on railway transport.

The Bulgarian Business Leaders Forum's General Assembly, held on May 28 at Grand Hotel Sofia, saw elections for three Board members and financial controller.

The EU cannot plug the holes in Ukraine's economy, according to Bulgarian socialist MEP Ivaylo Kalfin.

Speaking at a meeting with Bulgarian journalists in Brussels, Kalfin argued that Ukraine could get assistance from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the IMF was the body which could solve the country's immediate problems.