01.08.2012

\"Every ministry wants more but this will not happen. With the Civil Servant Law effective as from this week and the new payment model it will turn out that public administration salaries will grow by 20% on average\", said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Simeon Djankov for bTV. The rise of salaries will exceed the inflation rate in the last three years, he pointed out.

Minister Djankov announced that there would be an increase in all pensions. \"This time there will be an increase not only for the minimum pensions, as we did in May, but for all the pensions\", said the minister. Asked whether there would be money for Christmas bonuses and pensions at the end of the year, he said he never supported Christmas bonuses but rather preferred to increase all pensions by a bit higher percentage.

Minister Djankov said explicitly that there would be no change in VAT next year, i.e. no increase or decrease, nor differentiation, as the rumours say. \"From the point of view of the higher revenue we collect, we could decrease the VAT rate, but to my surprise, the majority and the opposition in Parliament do not want this to happen. They do not consider it a good idea. We have been recommended by the majority of the ruling party to focus on the income\", said the Finance Minister.

In addition to the increase in pensions and salaries and the lack of change in VAT, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Simeon Djankov also commented for bTV how he would challenge his colleagues not to make huge pre-election spending in the last year of the term of office of the ruling party, GERB.