Bulgaria’s Parliament extends ban on ‘economically unjustified’ consumer price increases
Bulgaria’s National Assembly adopted on June 11 the second and final reading of amendments to the Consumer Protection Act.
These amendments largely take on board the provisions of the Euro Adoption Act, which provide for a ban on “economically unjustified” increases in the prices of consumer goods and services.
The amendments to the Consumer Protection Act now extend this ban, due to expire in August 2026, to August 2027.
For the same period, traders with annual turnovers of more than 25 million eurowill have to continue to publish their sales prices on the internet every morning, as well as submit them to the Consumer Protection Commission in a machine-readable format.
The amendments to the Consumer Protection Act were adopted on second reading with the votes of Progressive Bulgaria and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms. The remaining political parties voted against or abstained.
The amendments also increase the fines for traders who cannot prove to the control authorities that there are objective economic factors for the increased prices – the fine is from 1000 to 10 000 euro, and for sole traders and legal entities, from 10 000 to 100 000 euro.
In the House the most heated debates were caused by the new clause on “fair prices”, which were renamed “fair value” during the second reading after strong criticism that a concept such as fair price does not exist.
Immediately after the amendments to the Consumer Protection Act, MPs debated and adopted amendments to the Competition Protection Act.
The latter amendments introduce restrictions on excessive price increases by traders who are in a position of “joint dominance”, another new concept.
The amendments provide for fines for monopolists with excessively high prices, expanding the list of unfair trade practices along the supply chain, and creating an electronic register to detect market distortions.
Progressive Bulgaria argued that these amendments arise from the need to limit high food prices and strengthen control over retail chains.
In case of failure to provide data for entry in the register or submission of false or misleading information, the sanctions range from 2500 euro for small enterprises to 500 000 euro or one per cent of turnover for the largest companies.
In case of further offences, the fines can reach two per cent of turnover, and in case of systematic violations of the obligations to submit data to the register, up to 10 per cent.
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