PM Radev claims EC is to initiate an excessive deficit procedure against Bulgaria

Bulgarian Prime Minister Roumen Radev told a Cabinet meeting on May 29 that he expects that the European Commission (EC) will on June 3 initiate an excessive deficit procedure against Bulgaria.

Radev was speaking a day after meeting EC President Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels.

He claimed that last year Bulgaria’s deficit was well above the three per cent threshold, and this year it will be even higher.

Radev alleged that Bulgaria submitted manipulated data on the budget deficit for last year to the European Commission.

“And we will be subjected to regular monitoring and restrictive measures with possible sanctions, because according to calculations and real data from the European Commission, the deficit for last year was well over three per cent, as they lied about in order to achieve the set goal of entering the euro zone,” he said.

“Now comes the time for the hard questions and the European Commission will ask why some people lied,” Radev said.

“As a result of carelessness, incompetence, voluntarism, populism and robbery, because some were studying to be financiers at our expense. Others were doing all sorts of manipulations.

“They were taking taxes in advance for a year ahead in order to adjust the Excel spreadsheets at their discretion, and others were inflating the costs with not-so-expedient public procurements at significantly inflated prices and were looting and draining the budget,” he said.

GERB-UDF MP Temenuzhka Petkova, who was finance minister in the January 2025 – February 2026 Rossen Zhelyazkov government, said that there was no excessive deficit last year.

“I would like to appeal to Prime Minister Radev not to use lies and incorrect interpretations of certain facts and data,” Petkova said.

She said that the excessive deficit procedure does not concern 2025, but 2026 “and this is no coincidence”.

Petkova said that the opposition to the Zhelyazkov government (meaning We Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria) was to blame, for not allowing an annual budget law to be adopted.

“For this reason, the Ministry of Finance could not present the so-called progress report on fiscal policy” she said.

We Continue the Change leader Assen Vassilev, a former finance minister, quoted what he had said on February 19 2025 when the annual budget was adopted, namely that it was drafted “with an expected GDP growth of 2.8 per cent and an average annual inflation of 2.4 per cent, in which case a growth in tax revenues of no more than 12 per cent can be expected, and 30 per cent is set in the budget”.

“With revenues set in this way, the three per cent deficit will certainly not be met. The budget was made so that we would not enter the euro zone and overthrow the government. The second part happened,” Vassilev said.

“We entered the euro zone for one simple reason – the report looks at the deficit for 2024, which Eurostat certifies is indeed three per cent,” he said.

“About 2025, we warned that it would create problems. When the budget for 2026 was submitted, we warned them for the second time, then we were already heard – not by those in power, but by the square,” he said, referring to the anti-government protests last year.

“So we are seeing the results of the unwise management of the Zhelyazkov cabinet and GERB,” Vassilev said.

He said that the way out of this situation is not debt, but the budget for 2026 should be adopted with realistic parameters – a three per cent deficit.

“Accordingly, the procedure will be terminated and there will be no consequences for Bulgaria”.

“For a long time, they accused us of being incapable. In ’22, ’23, ’24 the deficit was always within three per cent, certified by Eurostat, and there were no problems. In ’25, the capable people from GERB, MRF, BSP, and ITN came and screwed things up,” Vassilev said.

Ivailo Mirchev, co-leader of Yes Bulgaria – part of the Democratic Bulgaria coalition – said: “We predicted back in 2025 that we would enter an excessive deficit procedure, when it was clear that the deficit would not be three per cent.

“But the expectation from Progressive Bulgaria is that specific measures will be taken and a budget will be proposed to get within three per cent limits,” Mirchev said.

“What Roumen Radev is telling us now seems like an excuse for the fact that this year we will also be beyond three per cent and will incur new huge debt, instead of having the necessary reforms to get within three per cent and strive for a balanced budget in the coming years, especially since the government must present it within the four-year budget framework anyway,” he said.

Mirchev said that the deficit must be limited to three per cent this year and all political forces should back this goal.

“All that’s left are excuses and scaremongering to implement real reforms and simply incur more debt, which, to put it mildly, we don’t accept,” he said. 

He said that the protests in December brought down the government precisely for this reason – “because there was a lot of stealing, because there were no reforms set out in the 2026 budget, and because the budget was designed to serve the network of GERB and MRF companies.”

“And that Roumen Radev and Progressive Bulgaria came to power with a very clear demand for reforms, but after the bombastic words at the beginning, there is a retreat from these commitments,” Mirchev said.

Bulgarian National Radio reported an EC spokesperson as saying on May 29 that next month there will be a European Semester, “which will allow us to see the fiscal situation in the member states, as well as analyse the data from 2025”.

“Then we will make decisions, if necessary,” the spokesperson said, adding that statements on this occasion are expected next week.

“I will not comment on comments,” the spokesperson said.

(Photo: government.bg)