site.btaBulgarian Council for Economic Analyses Proved Its Right to Exist, Its Chair Donchev Says

The Bulgarian Council for Economic Analyses (CEA) proved its right to exist, CEA Chair and Deputy Prime Minister Tomislav Donchev said at the third annual CEA conference in Sofia on Monday. “It provides a different point of view and so helps to make fewer wrong decisions in government,” he added.

“It is most dangerous when we have a collective wrong consensus and beyond protocol arguments one of the main functions of the CEA is to charge the state government with dissent,” Donchev said.

The Deputy Prime Minister pointed out that it is better to “inject” into the economy BGN 4-5 billion of European financial resources than credit ones.

He said that there is no dispute on the issue whether the euro area will act as an accelerator of the Bulgarian economy in the next 10 years. There is also no dispute about the national economy producing more sophisticated output using the tools of education, as well as on the topic of maintaining a reasonable tax burden, which should be such that it limits state spending to the most necessary, the Deputy Prime Minister said.

However, there may be disputes on tempting topics such as how much the state will give and to which class, but to do so, it must first take the funds, Donchev added.

“And here the CEA should play the main function of a counterweight and so fewer mistakes are made in state management,” Donchev said.

The Bulgarian Council for Economic Analyses was established at the beginning of 2023 by a Decree of the Council of Ministers and has an advisory character. It is composed of economists from the academic community from prestigious universities and international institutions, who voluntarily and free of charge prepare independent analyses on particular issues concerning the state of the Bulgarian economy, the challenges it faces and possible policies to address them.