04.09.2013

"As a member of the Centre since 2003, Bulgaria has been able to exchange experience and knowledge and to get methodological support in effecting public finance reforms. There has been successful partnership between CEF and the Public Finance School to the Bulgarian Ministry of Finance where more than 350 experts have improved their qualification in the area of public finance, central banking and human resource development". This is what Minister of Finance Petar Chobanov said at the ceremony held yesterday on the signature of an Agreement for transforming the Centre of Excellence in Finance (CEF) into an international non-profit organization. Minister Chobanov signed the Agreement on behalf of Bulgaria by virtue of a mandate given by the Bulgarian government. The meeting of the Advisory Board of the Centre of Excellence in Finance is within the 8th Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia held in the period 1-3 September. Minister Chobanov advised all participant members to benefit from the CEF to strengthen the capacity of their public administrations. According to him, the states would thus contribute to ensuring sustainable development and expanding the areas of cooperation.
The Bulgarian Minister of Finance also took part in the panel "High Level Policy Dialogue on Strategic Planning and Budgeting in South East Europe" on the second day of the Forum. Mr. Chobanov commented on the possibilities for overcoming shortcomings in structuring fiscal policy, its implementation and coordination. Among these are greater transparency and exchange of good practices wherefor intensive and open coordination is needed. The Minister gave as an example the Public Finance School at the Ministry of Finance which organizes courses on good practices in the area of budgeting several times a year which are accessible for the entire public administration. He also added that Bulgarian experts participated regularly in forums and trainings organized by international organizations.
When discussing the ways in which those possibilities could be broadened and used by all ministries responsible for strategic planning and budgeting, Mr. Petar Chobanov explained to the participants in the discussion that Bulgarian draft budgets used to be discussed in the Council of Ministers and in the National Assembly. Social dialogue is another instrument concerning planning. Experts at line ministries together with representatives of employees, employers and NGOs creatively communicate in Bulgaria through public councils at the ministries, he pointed out. A possible way to take the process further down the expert hierarchy could be to form working groups consisting of experts representing various public institutions concerned with the policy issue at hand, the Minister proposed.
In the context of the topic Minister Chobanov also referred to the issue of achieving broad political consensus for reform. According to him, the point of interception between expert and political opinion could be the intense social dialogue, calculation, forecasting and analysis. "The most certain way to assure the national experts' political support for reforms is by designing them based on their real expected effect, rather than on their short term political merit", added Mr. Petar Chobanov.