site.btaChamber of Commerce and Industry Calls for Measures Limiting Rise in Number of People Below Poverty Line

The Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) Thursday said in a position that it supports the draft Council of Ministers decree setting the poverty line for 2026, calculated in accordance with the legislation and Eurostat's research. In the long term, however, it is necessary to consider measures limiting the increase in the number of people falling below the poverty line and thus needing social assistance, the BCCI notes.

No agreement was reached at the meeting of the Commission on Income and Living Standards of the National Council for Tripartite Cooperation, where government, unions, and business representatives discussed the draft decree proposing a poverty line of BGN 764 for 2026, up from the current BGN 638. The BCCI and the other employer organizations on the Commission - the Bulgarian Industrial Association, the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria, and the Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association - all supported the draft decree, the BCCI says further in its position.

The report of Labour and Social Policy Minister Borislav Gutsanov, attached to the draft decree and published in July, says that “the proposed BGN 764 corresponds to the poverty line in the EU statistics on income and living conditions (EU-SILC) survey, with the national poverty line increasing by 19.7% (BGN 126) compared to the previous year and expanding the scope of social assistance.” The public consultation period ended in early August.

Trade unions call for a new methodology to determine the poverty line and a higher poverty line.