The government is proposing a package of measures to deal with the consequences of the crisis in the Middle East and rising fuel prices worth around 100 million euros. They are aimed at the sectors that are currently most affected by energy prices and at vulnerable groups of the population, and the goal is to prevent a serious increase in inflation. A headquarters in the Council of Ministers will monitor electricity and food prices. What will be the effect of all this - comment Vasil Velev, Chairman of the General Assembly of the Bulgarian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and Ioannis Partheniotis, Vice President of the Trade Union "Podkrepa".
"The inflation that is coming is global and can hardly be stopped. There will be an increase in inflation. The question is that it should be more moderate and that there should be no measures that would fuel inflation. When there is a 20% supply restriction on oil in the world, everyone is moving towards limiting consumption, and this measure encourages consumption - moreover, it takes from everyone, including those who do not have cars, and allows people with cars to continue driving instead of using public transport", commented Vasil Velev.
"There is no way to stop inflation. If we take a loan and give it out, it is not clear to whom, so that prices do not rise - the markets are connected, i.e. it will happen that it will leak out and prices will rise anyway," commented Velev. However, we have the opportunity to limit inflation with much more powerful means, but we have caused ourselves twice as expensive energy for enterprises as it is in the USA, China and Russia, which leads to less opportunities for the industry to pay higher incomes. It loses competitiveness. Jobs are being lost," said the chairman of the General Assembly of the Association of Bulgarian Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
"This can be eliminated with a simple solution - increasing emissions or a moratorium on emissions trading, because in order to produce one megawatt-hour in "Maritsite", which costs 50-60 euros, we pay another 100 euros for emissions, which our competitors do not do and pay 10 times less," Velev also commented.
"We must note that we are in the initial stage of stagflation - rising inflation and, respectively, economic stagnation. Rising inflation from what we ourselves have created, and economic stagnation occurs as a result of the loss of competitiveness, not only of the Bulgarian economy, but of the entire European economy. The reflection of these two factors - impoverishment of the people, increasing unemployment - these are things that await us," said Ioannis Partheniotis, vice president of the “Podkrepa” CT.
The tension is a fact - it has been there since the beginning of the year with the political selfishness that our political elite showed at the end of last year, when they refused to adopt a regular budget. This political selfishness led to the current caretaker cabinet being tied down, and perhaps also to the next caretaker cabinet, if we do not have some normal result after the elections, they will not come to their senses to create a regular cabinet. Therefore, at the meeting with the Prime Minister, we called on this cabinet to begin preparing a regular budget for the state," commented Partheniotis.