Just on the eve of Bulgaria’s National Day of Liberation on March 3, the European Commission publishes its Annual Growth Survey for 2015. Out of 16 countries whose economies were previously identified as suffering from macroeconomic imbalances, the EC has decreased most the estimates for France and Bulgaria. Germany is also included in the list of countries of concern, but is not so heavily criticized.

With regard to Bulgaria, the EC argues that the country's economy suffers from excessive imbalances that require decisive political action and special surveillance. In particular - the turmoil in the financial sector in 2014 has caused concern about the practices in some Bulgarian-owned private banks and showed the inefficiency of the supervision of the BNB. Obviously, they refer to the crisis and the withdrawal of the license of Corporate Commercial Bank and the floundering First Investment Bank as a result of the turmoil in the financial system, which had to be rescued at the last moment with money from the state. Putting Bulgaria under special surveillance is the last step before the start of criminal proceedings. According to the economic commissioner Pierre Moscovici, the tightening of measures against Sofia is due to excessive corporate indebtedness and the weakness of the labor market. Here the 58 billion euro of corporate debts exceeding even the public debt has not gone unnoticed.

Unacceptable for the European Commission itself and its president Jean-Claude Juncker, however, is the budget deficit. Last year it exceeded the limit of 3% of the GDP, and this year it is expected to be close to this ceiling. The growth prospects of the Bulgarian economy are assessed most negatively. Experts and senior leaders of the EU make it clear that, as the Bulgarians say, there is no bread in the Bulgarian economy as it is now. This is a clear signal that there is something wrong in the national economy and it is not adequate to the contemporary business conditions.

The economic situation in Bulgaria is not easy because there is no growth, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told President Rossen Plevneliev in Brussels. This finding would lead the authorities to redouble their efforts to reform the areas that most impede growth. Their list is virtually endless, but particularly strong is the need for changes in the sectors of justice, public administration, education, healthcare and energy. Bulgaria is at the penultimate position in the EU also in terms of digitization of the economy, a study of the European Commission shows. After since Bulgaria’s entry into the EU in 2007 the EC put it under special supervision in the field of policing and justice, now it extends its control over the economy. The first concrete recommendations for solving the persistent macroeconomic problems of Bulgaria are expected in May.

English Rossitsa Petcova