site.btaEconomic and Social Council Calls for Revamping Planning Regions System

The system of Bulgaria's planning regions should be revised urgently to promote the development of the regions and to make EU funding really accessible to individuals and economic and other organizations, the country's Economic and Social Council (ESC) said in a position statement on Monday. The position concerns NUTS 2: Basic Regions (NUTS is the EU nomenclature of territorial units for statistics). It was adopted at a plenary meeting of the council.

The ESC argued that, within the current system of planning regions, the unproportionately high level of well-being in the city of Sofia compared to the national average artificially increases the reported well-being in the whole of Bulgaria's Southwestern Planning Region and cuts on the amount of EU grant aid which other parts of the region would otherwise be eligible to receive. This has led to significant economic disparities between Sofia and other administrative units, which have some of the EU's lowest levels of GDP per capita (based on purchasing power parity), lower even than in the notoriously underdeveloped northwest of the country.

The system of regions established for statistical purposes should be based on a legislative package acknowledging the regions' role in the next programming period. A larger inflow of EU grants will encourage enterprises to transform faster and become more competitive, energy efficient and innovative, the ESC said.

It insisted that national consensus on the issue should be achieved by March 2025, because in that year the European Commission is to put forward its proposals for the multiannual financial framework for the period 2028-2034. Bulgaria should use the opportunity to the fullest extent possible and should propose the best policies for regional development in the next period, the ESC said.

The council presented its conclusions and recommendations to Deputy Regional Development and Public Works Minister Yura Yordanova-Vitanova and representatives of the European Commission and the National Statistical Institute, who were at the meeting.

The ESC also adopted an analysis of the national pension system and recommendations for its improvement, commissioned by the speaker of the 49th National Assembly. The analysis shows that the current three-pillar model of pension insurance is fine. Still, the ESC recommends changes to each pillar. The texts were discussed and adopted in the presence of Deputy Labour and Social Policy Minister Lazar Lazarov and representatives of the National Social Security Institute, the National Revenue Agency and the Financial Supervision Commission.