site.btaNational Council for Tripartite Cooperation Meets to Discuss 2026 Budget Bills

Bulgaria's National Council for Tripartite Cooperation (NCTC) will meet on Monday, to discuss the drafts of a 2026 National Health Insurance Fund Budget Act, a 2026 Public Social Insurance Budget Act, the Government Information Service said. According to the meeting's agenda, the social partners will consider a 2026 State Budget Act.

Last week, the trade unions, the employer organizations and the government reached an understanding on the key parameters of the 2026 draft budget, Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova said, emerging from a session with the social partners. Petkova said further that after Monday's NCTC meeting the budget bills will be laid before the Council of Ministers and will be submitted to the National Assembly in the afternoon.

The law requires that NCTC members consider the three budget bills before they reach Parliament. On November 5, however, the Council's meeting was cancelled when the employers boycotted it.

Following mass-scale protests around the country on December 1, the pro-government majority decided to review the initial version of the budget. Parliament on December 3 approved unanimously the withdrawal of the state budget bill, and the bills of the National Health Insurance Fund, and the Public Social Insurance for 2026. The Ministry of Finance published the new draft state budget for 2026 and the Updated Medium-Term Budget Forecast for 2026-2028 on its official website late on December 6. The Supervisory Board of the National Social Security Institute unanimously approved the draft public social insurance budget for 2026 and the Supervisory Board of the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) approved the NHIF draft budget for 2026, on December 7.