“Bulgaria is managing the crisis pretty well,” said Leszek Balcerowicz during his public lecture in Sofia, entitled Economic Growth Issues in Europe. Mr. Balcerowicz is former vice premier and finance minister of Poland. He is one of the leading Polish economic experts, best known for what is known as the Balcerowicz plan that aimed at the economic awakening of Poland in the early 1990s. Up to 2007 he was in charge of the country’s Central Bank.

According to the professor, poverty is always due to bad regimes and dictators, while the poor economic growth is mostly due to weak institutions and wrong bank policies within certain countries. The “money printing” of the European Central Bank does not solve the problems and cannot save the Eurozone in the long term. Leszek Balcerowicz says that Brussels cannot replace national governments in terms of coping with the economic crisis.

The lack of equality among individuals is a huge problem in Europe, according to the professor, who also says:

Balcerowicz went on to say that bureaucracy is a major issue for the development of any country, globally.

The professor said he was a fan of flat tax and that he approved Bulgaria’s policy to fight with the crisis via its implementation. He says that the progressive tax was not a good economic stimulus, in his opinion. Bulgaria’s entering into the Eurozone won’t have a serious effect on its national economy, but it is more like politically essential, the professor comments. He underlined that this country enjoys currency stability and low levels of inflation, as well as a Currency Board with a good structure, which is very important in times of crisis.

Balcerowicz said the debt was quickly growing, but it is at one of the lowest levels in Bulgaria within the EU. Those levels should remain low, in order for stability to be preserved. The state should decrease expenses and not increase taxes. Judicial reforms are necessary, in order for the business environment to be improved and corruption to be limited to the maximum.

English version: Zhivko Stanchev