site.btaFinance Minister and Opposition Leader Clash Over Use of Public Debt

Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova and former Finance Minister Assen Vassilev, who is now leader of the Continue the Change party clashed Tuesday over the use of the public debt.

First, Vassilev said in a video on Facebook that over the past six months Bulgaria has taken on more public debt than it did during the previous three years combined. In a video published on the party’s official Facebook page, he addressed Finance Minister Petkova asking how over BGN 16.5 billion borrowed since the adoption of the 2025 state budget, have been spent.

He went on to catalogue measures that were financed through BGN 15.5 billion in public debt in 2022-24.

Finance Minister Petkova reacted in a Facebook post, saying that Assen Vassilev “would be remembered in public finance textbooks as an example of mishandling taxpayers' money”. She cited examples to make the conclusion that "it will take us a long time to deal with the negative consequences of this person's presence in Bulgaria's public finances".

On Monday, the Ministry of Finance issued BGN 300 million in new domestic debt with an average annual yield of 2.40%. The offering consisted of three-year interest-bearing government securities from issue No. BG 20 300 25 113 dated January 22, 2025, with an annual interest rate of 2.75% and a total volume of BGN 300 million.

According to a BTA review of Finance Ministry data, this was the tenth debt auction on the domestic market in 2025. So far this year, BGN 2.4 billion in new debt has been raised on the domestic market.

The Finance Ministry has also carried out two debt operations on international capital markets. In April, BGN 7.82 billion (EUR 4 billion) in debt was raised, followed by EUR 3.2 billion (BGN 6.25 billion) in July.

As a result, since the beginning of 2025, Bulgaria has taken on nearly BGN 16.5 billion in new debt. The maximum permissible amount of new public debt for the year is BGN 18.9 billion.