This country needs a strong government and I do want this to happen – let’s say, by November 10, said caretaker PM Georgi Bliznashki on air, broadcast by both public media representatives – the national radio and television on Wednesday evening. According to him the cabinet has fulfilled 90 percent of its tasks.

The conducting of fair and legitimate elections was pointed out by Bliznashki as one of the most important of those tasks. As far as the purchase of vote malpractice was concerned, the Premier stated:

“We are talking here of a disease, far spread across our society,” he said. “I have to say that we have put tremendous efforts, never seen before, as estimated by the Interior Ministry. We managed to minimize the purchase of votes by 30 percent”.

The caretaker Premier reminded that the budget update was really necessary. The project has already been submitted to parliament for consideration.

“I am really sorry that the budget update wasn’t carried out in the end of the mandate of the previous parliament, as it created huge difficulties in the work of the previous national assembly”, the premier said. “We were literally squeezing out the budget, in order to find money for the emergency situations – torrential rains and floods, and respectively to cope with the consequences. The update is really necessary. I can only mention that up to the moment of our stepping into office in the beginning of August over 80 percent of the state budget money, provided for the public administration had already been spent. We had to find some EUR 100 million to support the Healthcare Fund. Furthermore, we came upon a literally empty budget of the Fund for Overcoming Consequences of Disasters and Breakdowns and we had to look for additional resources, some EUR 25 mln. went straight there.”

In the words of the caretaker Premier EUR 10 million will be granted at the next sitting of cabinet, necessary for the overcoming of the damages due to the latest distress situations.

According to Georgi Bliznashki the 2014 budget was unrealistic and not grounded on public realities.

“The feeling that some significant expenses were taking place was due to the fact that we spared nearly EUR 40 million of state budget money for the payments under both ceased EU Operational Programmes – Environment and Regional Development. That was a huge risk, a burden for the budget, but we did it with full consciousness, because we were expected to do it and the West took us for the pro-European government of Bulgaria. Yet the first signs were positive – I mean the approval of the 2014 – 2020 agreement. I would like to voice to the media the good news, as far as the environmental program is concerned. It has been evaluated positively by the EC and EUR 350 million will be here by mid-November. The risk was justified. I hope that the other programme, on regional development that also marks a lot of notices will find its payoff…”

The interview also tackled the subject with the Corporate Commercial Bank issues. The Premier called on the politicians to update the budget at once.

“We have provided there the funding necessary, in order for the payment of those deposits of up to EUR 100,000 to be guaranteed. The most important thing cannot be done without a budget update – the thing that will take away the tension within society. People with small deposits should get an access to their money. So, let them start with the update and it will be very nice if the CCB files are open. I think it will cause pretty big distress among our political elite. Whoever is involved in politics, should be ready to bear responsibility on the risks from the consequences, caused by his actions. I think that things have gone too far. What the quaestors told us, when they entered CCB, for a hole of over EUR 2 bln. – it was something unexpected. The sum is tremendous and I think radical actions are necessary here…”

English version: Zhivko Stanchev