Bulgarian police mull end to pay protests after government agrees to 100M leva salary boost
An early-morning meeting on January 11 between Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov and police trade union representatives produced an agreement for the government to add a further 100 million leva for salary increases at the Interior Ministry.
The meeting was held on the morning of the day Bulgaria formally takes over, for six months, the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union. Police unions were among those who were using the occasion to draw attention to their demands.
The meeting between Borissov and the police union representatives was a sequel to an incident in which the unions had put up billboards in English on routes in Sofia to be used by senior EU officials. However, the company that owns the billboards took them down amid the controversy, claiming it had been misled about what the billboards would say.
Borissov condemned the removal of the billboards and offered the police unions the use of a billboard that had been set aside for the EU Presidency, but this offer was refused and instead the unions demanded talks with him, to which he agreed.
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