BULGARIA’S PARLIAMENT RATIFIED THE AGREEMENT FOR BOND ISSUE OF 16 BILLION BGN

After almost 5 hours of debate on 25th of February, Bulgaria’s Parliament approved the ratification of the agreement with four intermediary banks for a new loan of 16 billion BGN (8 billion euro) between 2015 and 2017.

The dealer agreement is between the Republic of Bulgaria on the one part and Citigroup Global Markets Limited, HSBC Bank Plc, Societe Generale and UniCredit Bank AG on the other part.

The motives of the Bulgarian Council of Ministers, which tabled the proposal, say that the purpose of the signed agreements is to create a mid-term note programme for bond issues on international capital markets.

The ratification of the agreement was passed with the votes of the ruling centre right GERB and the Reformist Bloc and the votes of the parties which initially did not support the debt - the liberal “Movement for Rights and Freedoms”, the centre-left “ABC” party, which is part of the coalition government and the Bulgarian Democratic Centre.

The U-turn of position came after the Finance Minister, Vladislav Goranov, pledged to reduce expenses by 2 billion BGN and to carry out reforms.