site.btaTrade Union Presidents Comment on 2026 Draft Budget, CITUB Union Deems It Feasible

Plamen Dimitrov, President of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB), Tuesday said the union deems the 2026 draft budget feasible and a compromise version that will be supported with some additions at Thursday's meeting of the National Council for Tripartite Cooperation.

The additions will target spending on subsidies for the Bulgarian State Railways (BDZ), the postal service, urban transport and other systems.

Earlier in the day, trade union representatives met with GERB's leadership at the party's headquarters in Sofia to discuss the 2026 draft budget.

"There are many ways to balance the budget on the revenue side," Dimitrov explained. Additional revenue could be generated with a significant effort to improve collection this year. Collection rates are at an unprecedented high for both revenue agencies, and a similar rate is projected for 2026, he said.

Within this framework, raising the corporate income tax or cutting the capital expenditure programme are the two possible alternatives to this compromise version, both of which would place a burden on businesses and citizens, Dimitrov stressed. He added that the dividend tax is largely paid by individuals rather than businesses, noting that three-quarters of the expected revenue would come from Bulgarian citizens.

According to him, the budget imposes a light burden on businesses and citizens in order to finance the necessary expenditures, which are largely accepted by Parliament as legal guarantees for the various systems.

Dimitar Manolov, President of the Podkrepa Confederation of Labour, said the higher VAT rate proposed by the employer organizations is "unacceptable and scandalous". He called it a "red line", adding that with Bulgaria's upcoming entry in the euro area such a step would have negative consequences, leading to an excessive increase in prices.

Manolov added that a number of zero-rate measures, used to facilitate the export of capital from Bulgaria, should be halted.