Bulgarian government to pay 40 leva ‘Easter bonus’ to lowest-bracket pensioners
Bulgarian Prime Minister Boiko Borissov’s Cabinet agreed on March 20 2019 to grant an “Easter bonus” in April of 40 leva (about 20.45 euro) to each of the country’s more than 1.32 million pensioners who are in the lowest bracket of pension payments.
Just more than 56 per cent of pensioners in Bulgaria are below the poverty line, according to official statistics.
The payment will cost Bulgaria’s state coffers about 53 million leva, about three million leva more than the equivalent payment at Easter 2018.
Payments will begin with the issuing of monthly pensions in April. Bulgaria, a country where the majority of the population declare themselves to be adherents of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, celebrates Easter Sunday in 2019 on April 28, a week later than the Protestant and Roman Catholic Easter.
Over the past decade or so, it has been fairly routine practice for a succession of governments to pay “bonuses” at Easter and Christmas to the lowest-income pensioners.
(Photo: Clive Leviev-Sawyer)
