After the Collapse of the Tripartite Council Meeting: Employers Voice Criticism of the Draft 2026 State Budget

Both trade unions and employer organisations expressed dissatisfaction after the government confirmed it would submit the 2026 draft budget to Parliament without their input.

Deputy PM Cancels Meeting of National Council for Tripartite Cooperation Scheduled for Nov 13

Dobrin Ivanov, Executive Director of the Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association (BICA), said:“We remain open to dialogue and communication. We will take part in the parliamentary committee discussions and will argue for changes to the state’s financial plan for next year. We firmly believe that Bulgaria needs to improve the efficiency of public spending.”

Lyuboslav Kostov, Chief Economist at the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB), commented:“Taxes haven’t been touched in Bulgaria for 17 years. Now, for the first time, the government wants to adjust them because of the deficit problem. How to boost revenues was also an issue that should have been discussed at the National Council for Tripartite Cooperation. There are ten things we agree with and ten we don’t — and we wanted to voice them there.”

Atanas Katsarchev, chief economist of the Trade Union "Podkrepa": "The social dialogue was broken for objective reasons, never mind that Mr. Ananiev said yesterday that the Ministry of Finance had done everything possible, but there was no dialogueWe received the draft budget at the very last moment and had to respond hastily. So 'Podkrepa' trade union does not support this budget.

Asked by BNT about their next steps, Katsarchev said the unions are ready to engage further:

“Most likely we will take part in the parliamentary discussions, as long as we’re invited and some of our proposals are taken into account.”