site.btaMedia Review: November 6

2026 BUDGET PACKAGE

The cancellation of Wednesday’s meeting of the National Council for Tripartite Cooperation (NCTC) of the government, employers and trade unions is a leading topic in Bulgarian media. The social partners were expected to discuss the 2026 draft state budget, as well as the budgets for the National Health Insurance Fund and for Public Social Insurance. The participating employer organizations refused to attend the meeting in protest against the proposed budget parameters. This is the first time that the budget package is in euro as the country is set to join the euro area on January 1.

Trud says in its main story that one of the largest employer organizations, the Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA), is opposed to raising the minimum monthly wage to EUR 620.20, increasing social insurance contributions by 2 percentage points and upping the contributory income cap to EUR 2,352 per month. Lyuboslav Kostov, Chief Economist at the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria, said that the unions did not understand why the employer organizations chose to boycott the NCTC meeting. “In our opinion, the place to do things is at the table of dialogue, where everything has been done so far,” Kostov said. The daily quotes law experts as warning that if the draft budget package is approved by the Council of Ministers and reaches the National Assembly without going through the NCTC, opposition MPs may petition the Constitutional Court that the procedural rules were violated.

BNT1, the main channel of Bulgarian National Television, discussed the failed NCTC meeting on Thursday. Stanislav Popdonchev, Vice President and Chief Finance Director at the BIA, commented during the channel’s morning talk show that making the budget draft available at 5 PM on Monday and convening a Budget Committee meeting at 3 PM on Tuesday obviously precluded a serious expert-level discussion of the budget, considering that the draft is between 400 and 500 pages. Then, there was the NCTC meeting scheduled for Wednesday morning, after which the Council of Ministers was to vote on the whole package the same day at 2 PM. It was impossible to hold a debate, and therefore the NCTC meeting was called off, Popdonchev said.

SegaBG.com says that in 2026, as in earlier years, the government plans to take on huge loans, far larger than necessary to fill the budget gap and to refinance old liabilities. Using almost the same scheme as in 2025, the cabinet intends to pour part of the new debt into the coffers of state-owned companies, presenting the operation as an investment rather than public expenditure. The incumbents will thus go around the problem of a growing government deficit while also securing lots of money for dubious expenses, the website says.

Trud carries a signed comment which says that, basically, the state budget scheme proposed by the Finance Ministry takes money from businesses and working people to give it to civil servants. The author, Viktor Blaskov, wonders why so many people are furious about it. If they did not want it to happen, where were they during the elections? – he says.

ECONOMY

Lilyana Pavlova, former vice president of the European Investment Bank and former minister of regional development and public works of Bulgaria, said on Thursday’s morning talk show of BNT1 that the euro is an instrument but not a cure-all for every risk. Discussing the planned euro changeover in this country on January 1, Pavlova said: “The euro is a great opportunity. It is a strategic choice of where we want to go, a chance for the Bulgarian economy, for our nation to grow, attract investments, boost incomes and improve the quality of life.” She noted that the drive for euro area membership has taken many years and was delayed by a period of political instability at home, but the country has made the right strategic choice.

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Alexander Kolyachev, acting Chair of the Commission for Consumer Protection (CCP), says in a 24 Chasa interview that checks are made all the time, but so far, no trader has been fined for profiteering in connection with the planned euro changeover in Bulgaria on January 1. Kolyachev argues that consumer price changes are driven mainly by market factors, and if the price of an input product offered on international commodity exchanges goes up, it will inevitably influence prices in Bulgaria. He says that most recently, the steepest price hikes have been reported for coffee, sweets and cosmetic products. The CCP has not received any complaints about a fuel price hike since the introduction of the latest sanctions on Lukoil, Kolyachev says.

POLITICS

Foreign nationals of Bulgarian origin find themselves paying between EUR 300 and EUR 1,000 per person just to reserve a date and time to submit a Bulgarian citizenship application, Dnevnik.bg has found in an investigation. Under the law, the service is supposed to be free, the website says. It notes that since 2019, the Justice Ministry has administrated a special electronic system which allows people to apply for Bulgarian citizenship from any location around the globe. In effect, however, the platform is at times non-operational, at times very hard to access as it turns out to be blocked – not by coincidence – within the short span of being “open”.

Inspections by the State Agency for National Security in 2022 and the Prosecution Service in 2024 found no evidence of corruption. In the meantime, the practice of paid bookings has persisted unchecked, the investigation found.

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The government proposes new legislation to provide for the confiscation of a driver’s car if he or she causes death or bodily injury on the road, 24 Chasa says in its main story. Such confiscation should require a court judgment, the government says. The measure is proposed in a draft amendment to the Penal Code. At present, car confiscation is applied only if a person is caught driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs even if he did not cause a traffic accident resulting in death or injury. The news was reported after the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers.

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The question of whether a rift is looming in the Bulgarian education system is discussed on MediaPool.bg. The matter is raised after leading state-run universities established a new association on October 17. For years, Bulgaria has had a legitimate organization, the Council of Rectors, which represents the interests of all higher education establishments, state and private, before the government authorities, the story says. The author, Radoslav Alexandrov, says that the new organization, called Association of State-run Higher Schools (ASHS), was established somewhat hastily. He asks why it was necessary to set up such an entity, how it will interact with the Council of Rectors, and what other activities it will pursue.

The constituent protocol establishing the ASHS was signed by 15 universities. The association will be headed by Sofia University Rector Georgi Valchev. The constituent meeting was attended by Deputy Education and Science Minister Nikolay Vitanov. The ASHS says it will be a partner in formulating, implementing and monitoring government policies on higher education and scientific research and in discussing legislative and regulatory changes. These functions are the same as those of the Council of Rectors, the only difference being that the new organization represents only some state-run universities, the story says.

It has been speculated that one of the reasons for the apparent fragmentation may have to do with the allocation of resources among research universities, the author says. He recalls that this summer, the Education and Science Ministry proposed new criteria for awarding research status to universities. Consequently, research universities, whose number is 12 at present, may decrease substantially. The Council of Rectors opposed the intended changes and called for fairer rules. The ASHS denied the allegations, saying that it represents not just research universities, the article says.

It concludes that it remains to be seen whether the Council of Rectors will have an ally in the ASHS in addressing higher education issues, or whether the problems will be exacerbated.

NEW YORK CITY MAYORAL ELECTION

“A Socialist Becomes Mayor of New York,” caps the leading story in Duma, the newspaper of the Bulgarian Socialist Party. It says that Zohran Mamdani, 34, the candidate of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, was elected Mayor of the most populous US city after he won the vote in four of its five boroughs. Mamdani made history by becoming the first Muslim, the first person of South Asian descent and the first African-born individual to win the post. He describes himself as a “democratic socialist”, the daily says. During the election campaign, he promised a rent freeze, free public buses, a network of low-price food stores, and an increase of the minimum hourly wage to USD 30 by 2030 from the current USD 16.50. To fund his social initiatives, Mamdani plans to set a “millionaire tax” and a property tax on private universities in New York City to re-channel resources to cost-free state university systems, the daily says.

24 Chasa sums up Mamdani’s election as follows: “A rapper, a Muslim, a ‘communist’. New York City’s mayor-elect is Trump’s worst nightmare.” The paper notes that the message is clear: New York wants change. Just a year ago, Mamdani, a millennial, was a virtually unknown political outsider, the story says. At the start of the campaign, he had 1% support, but eventually, he garnered 50.4% of the vote. The paper sees his victory as “a Red wave surging in New York”.

SegaBG.com runs the headline, “Shot from Aurora Hits Manhattan”. The reference is to the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, which was signalled with a blank shell from the cruiser Aurora off the city of Saint Petersburg, then capital of Russia. The website says that socialism has made an indisputable breakthrough in New York. The “city that never sleeps” has become “the Red Apple”, says the article, signed by Petyo Tsekov. He argues that Mamdani’s victory is a plus for Donald Trump because, by putting Mamdani at the helm of the city government, the Democratic Party has given the US President the perfect punching bag which he can pummel for a long time.