Bus companies to protest in Sofia on April 26
Bus companies are going ahead with a planned protest in Bulgaria’s capital city Sofia on April 26.
More than 100 buses will be involved in the protest, which is entitled “no to the grey economy”.
The companies involved in the protest want all those offering transport services to be brought into the formal economy and regulated.
“They should buy cash registers, have professional competence, pay their taxes, pay social insurance or be put into some kind of legal framework, as happens elsewhere in the whole world. You cannot have 100 minibuses leaving from Kurdzhali every Saturday or every Thursday,” Galia Topolova of the National Association of Bus Carriers said.
The protest begins at noon and the buses are to travel a route beginning at Gorublyane, along Tsarigradsko Chaussee to Russki Boulevard, Tsar Osvododitel, Dondoukov Boulevard, Maria Louisa Boulevard, Lion Bridge to the Central Bus Station. The convoy is to travel at slow speed.
Talks last week with Transport Minister Ivailo Moskovski failed to avert the protest.
According to the bus transport firms, the April 26 protest serves only as a warning and unless their demands are met, they may hold a one-day strike across Bulgaria.
(Photo: Michal Zacharzewski/sxc.hu)
