site.btaPresident Slams 2026 Draft State Budget for Lacking Vision and Growth Incentives

Speaking to reporters here on Friday, President Rumen Radev slammed the 2026 draft state budget as an instrument for political survival. He criticized the bill for lacking vision, reforms, and growth incentives, and even for stifling the economy and getting the state caught in a debt spiral.

The head of State continued, describing the proposed budget as "some tortured attempts to fit certain figures into a certain framework in order to demonstrate readiness for the eurozone".

Radev said it was disrespectful for the National Council for Tripartite Cooperation to be given a 400-page budget in the evening and to be expected to give their opinion by noon the next day. He added: "I expect the dialogue to take place at an earlier stage, rather than being presented with a fait accompli on the grounds that there is no time."

Asked about the sanction imposed by the Magnitsky Act, Radev described the leader of GERB Boyko Borissov and the MRF - New Beginning Chair Delyan Peevski as the Magnitsky Coalition and continued: "Mr Peevski has hired Mr Borissov as his lawyer, and [Borissov] is getting tangled up in his own stories—one for the diplomats, one for the media, and one for Peevski." The President said that Borissov tried to lobby in favour of Peevski, which is why it did not come as a surprise when the British Embassy refuted his claims. Radev concluded: "You cannot fool the whole world, [as] sooner or later, this bubble will burst."