The leader of "We Continue the Change" Assen Vassilev commented in the studio of "Panorama" on the economic situation in the country, measures against inflation and political relations in the opposition. He said that he does not regret not being the Minister of Finance at the moment.
"We currently have a very serious and severe crisis on a global scale with the war in Iran. I was the Minister of Finance during the previous such severe crisis – the war in Ukraine, when it started. And then the energy crisis that came. And I know how difficult it is to find the balance so that Bulgarian families are not impoverished on the one hand, and on the other hand, budgeting discipline is maintained."
According to him, the current government approach to prices is wrong and will not lead to a real reduction in the price of goods:
"In my opinion, there must be a completely different approach if we really want to solve the problem that is before us. The approach that is offered to us with the two bills is ineffective in terms of prices."
He explained that some of the texts are useful in terms of unfair practices in the supply chain, but will not lead to a drop in final prices:
"They are directly taken from contracts that the CPC has reviewed. And they are meaningful, they should be adopted, but this will redistribute profits in the chain, but will not reduce prices."
According to Vassilev, the bill in practice introduces a price ceiling, although this is not explicitly acknowledged:
"Article 21B directly says - prohibition of excessively high prices. One of the ways to calculate it is how much your costs are plus a reasonable profit margin. But no one has said what a reasonable profit margin is."
He emphasized that the real problem is that business is currently operating at sharply increased costs:
"You enter any chain, retailer, hair salon - they will tell you: my electricity prices have doubled since October last year. My fruit and vegetable prices have gone up because most greenhouses in our region are heated with gas. And the price of gas has gone up because of the war in Iran."
Vassilev said that the state cannot effectively set "fair prices" for tens of thousands of products:
"You go into the neighborhood store – they have 3,000 different items. You go into a large supermarket – there are 60,000 items. There is no way any state organization, let alone the Competition Protection Commission or the Consumer Protection Commission, can set a fair price for 30,000 items."
According to Vassilev, the measures that work are three – energy compensation, support for producers and income growth above inflation.
He rejected accusations that it was his economic policies that led to inflation and debt growth:
"Exactly the opposite. We have always acted according to our pockets. That is why the budgets and the deficit remained within 3%. While I was making the budgets, the debt-to-GDP ratio did not move. It even fell by 1 percentage point - from 24% to 23%."
He explained that the sharp rise in debt came after his administration:
"The ratio jumped from 24 to 29 last year. And we warned about it. They took an additional 10 billion leva, which went to the Development Bank, the Bulgarian Energy Holding and all sorts of other things.
Regarding relations with "Democratic Bulgaria" Vassilev said that the division was ideological, not personal:
"We have a different vision of what the economy and the socio-economic system of the country should look like. What we believe purely as centrists, I have always defended."
He emphasized that during the crises, taxes were not increased, and even some rates were temporarily reduced.