Bulgaria's Government Makes First Steps towards Increase of Minimum Pension

The Minister of Labour and Social Policy, Bisser Petkov, informed on 8^th of June in the Council of Ministers that the government approved the draft amendments to the State Social Security Budget Act and will be submitted to the National Assembly. This is the first step toward raising the minimum pensions, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic and Demographic Policy Valeri Simeonov said and noted that this was one of the main tasks and priorities in the United Patriots (coalition government partner) programme.

The minister has expressed hope that the changes will be backed in Parliament so that they can come into force on 1^st of July and the higher amounts of the minimum pensions be paid, which from that date are proposed to increase to 180 BGN. On 1^st of October, the same darft law provides for the second step of raising the minimum retirement pension from 180 to 200 BGN.

The Minister has specified that the assessment of the extra cost to pay the increased minimum pensions is about 100 million BGN by the end of the year and has added that this increase will not lead to an increase of the planned amount of the subsidy from the central budget for covering the shortage of funds under the State Social Security budget because the current implementation shows that there is over-fulfillment of the revenue plan for the first four months by about BGN 100 million, which will cover the higher expenditure that will come from the increased minimum pensions.