Public economics

The businessman Nikolai Banev and his wife Evgenia were detained in France with a European arrest warrant. This is another business family against which a large-scale investigation is being conducted, reports BNT. 

Sofia. The Parliament introduced an electronic procurement platform by approving on second reading amendments to the law on public procurement, Focus News Agency reports. According to the approved texts, procurement shall be carried out by electronic means through a centralised electronic platform.

Labor, taxation and social welfare policies in countries around Europe and Central Asia must be brought into the 21st century to tackle rising inequality between groups and help workers face increased uncertainty, a new World Bank study has said.

Greece's government presented a three-year plan to overhaul the country's public sector on Wednesday, the latest attempt to fix a problem that helped plunge the country into its worst crisis in decades seven years ago.

Constant contradictions from the government in regard to its position on investments and privatizations are taking a heavy toll on the economy and doing the country a lot of harm.

Women, especially young women, have been hit particularly hard by Greece's economic crisis, Labor and Social Insurance Minister Effie Achtsioglou told the Parliament in Athens on Wednesday on the occasion of International Women's Day.

The government is considering a new property tax to replace the existing ENFIA after 2018, whose calculation will be based not only on the value of each taxpayer's property assets but also on their annual income.

The report from the inspection of the ministries carried out by the interim government will not become public. The extended version of the report was published on Monday but, in fact, it repeats the statement of interim PM Ognyan Gerdzhikov from last week and does not even present a general picture of suspicious practices during the implementation of public procurement orders.

A new set of tax rates is being drafted at the State General Accounting Office, as the income tax overhaul will apparently concern more than just the tax-free threshold.

A Turkish parliamentary commission has approved a law proposal that stipulates a 5 percent cut in taxes for corporate taxpayers who pay on regular basis and on time. 

According to the proposal, which was accepted late on Feb. 15, all corporate taxpayers will pay 5 percent lower than the calculated taxes if they meet a number of conditions, Reuters has reported.