EIB "Special Report" Will Guarantee the Financial Independence of ESO and Bulgartransgaz, the Companies Remain in BEH

A special report by the European Investment Bank will guarantee that there will be no cross-subsidization in the companies of the BEH group. This report will be prepared and presented by the EIB and the government to the European Commission. In this way, it will be guaranteed that it will not be necessary to remove ESO and Bulgartransgaz from the structure of the Bulgarian Energy Holding. This was explained by Energy Minister Zhecho Stankov at a special briefing today in the Council of Ministers. This is one of the critical reforms from the Recovery and Sustainability Plan, which the EC is insisting on. This special report will ensure the operation of the companies so that these profitable companies continue to be part of BEH. Otherwise, their removal from the holding will lead to a pre-required payment of the BEH bond issue by the shareholders. BEH's issued issues so far are for over 2.39 billion leva.

The report itself is unclear when exactly it will be prepared, but it is important for the reforms to continue and for Bulgaria to receive funds under the Recovery and Sustainability Plan. It is precisely saving the money under the RSP that is the state's top priority, after it became clear last week that Bulgaria has no chance of implementing all the reforms from the Plan and will lose billions of funds.

The current proposal for an EIB report to guarantee the financial independence of ESO and Bulgartransgaz can also be considered as a type of bank guarantee, through which the EIB and Bulgaria will guarantee to the EC that cross-subsidization of companies in the state energy sector will not be allowed. This comment by experts has not been confirmed by the energy ministry, and the people who explained to our media about the type of bank guarantee requested anonymity.

At the briefing, there were a number of political reprimands about who sent this recovery plan to whom and how to Brussels and why the reforms in it are inapplicable in practice. From the words of Energy Minister Stankov, it even became clear that according to the reforms of the PVU, coal-fired power plants will operate for a limited number of hours per year, and after their limit is exhausted, they will reach the electricity regime. Such a measure is categorically rejected by the GERB party and we will never allow Bulgarian citizens to be left without electricity, Minister Stankov was categorical.

Which projects will be implemented under the NRP will become clear next week

Next week we will announce which of the projects under the National Recovery and Sustainability Plan (NRSP) are being dropped. The necessary reforms will be considered and voted on directly in the National Assembly, without being submitted by the government. This was announced by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Innovation and Growth Tomislav Donchev at an extraordinary briefing in the Council of Ministers (CM) in the presence of the Ministers of Finance and Energy Temenuzhka Petkova and Zhecho Stankov.

 The three ministers criticied a roundtable held today by "Continuing the Change", at which the budget and funds under the Recovery Plan were commented on. According to Tomislav Donchev, "scandalously false statements" were made at the meeting in question.

"The problems that Bulgaria has with the RSP can be reduced to - vote for these two or three laws is ridiculous, said Tomislav Donchev.

"Whoever drains a dam, should not talk about a dam," he commented and explained that the main problem is the drastically delayed investments under the plan.

According to him, in the last four years, a large part of them have not been implemented at all - neither procedures nor public procurements have been prepared.

"Whether due to political instability, ministers who do not know what they are doing or ministers who are lazy, for a large part of the projects nothing has happened. Nothing, absolutely nothing."

Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova asked Asen Vassilev what he criticizes in the budget, given that last night the texts passed the first reading in parliament.

"In my opinion, he criticizes himself and his own policies, since for the last four years he has been the sole leader in terms of Bulgaria's public finances. Now, seeing the result after four years of attempts in this area, I think he got scared. Our government and the GERB Party have been involved in the management of the country and public finances for a little over a month, but we have the privilege of paying the old unpaid bills of Mr. Vassilev," she commented.

Petkova noted that the current government is paying the bills of Asen Vassilev. "These are half a billion unpaid debts of the RIA, 246 million of the Ministry of Labor, the Ministry of Transport and Communications, 524 million under the municipal investment program, over 721 million of unpaid debts to the Road Infrastructure Agency," she said.

Regarding the expenses, which according to Assen Vassilev are higher, Temenuzhka Petkova said that "they are the result of the policies that have been pursued in the public sector over the past four years."

 The expnses that we propose have been reduced and refined by 2.2 billion leva, Minister Petkova pointed out.

 Earlier, Vassilev said that in the 225 budget adopted at first reading, there are several rather scandalous things, and the most scandalous is "that 7 billion is taken leva more debt than is necessary".

The people's representatives adopted the state budget for 2025 in the first reading at around 2.30 am with 152 votes "for" and 73 "against". The discussion on one of the most important bills began shortly after 23.00 and lasted four hours.

A few days ago, it became clear that our country is losing part of the money from the second payment, and today Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov stated before the start of the extraordinary EU Summit that Bulgaria will propose that the unspent and unabsorbable funds from the Recovery and Sustainability Mechanism (National Recovery and Sustainability Plan, NRSP) be used for defense instead of the money from the cohesion funds.