Bulgaria's Parliament has given the green light to a package of bills setting next year's state budget and overhauling expenditure for 2015.

Revenues for 2016 are estimated at BGN 20.6 B, and expenditure will be BGN 10.97 B.

Of transfers included in the budget, worth BGB 10.52 B, some BGN 2.66 B are earmarked for municipalities.

This year's budget has also been updated, with deficit growing from BGN 2.2 B to BGN 2.7 B, after additional allocations to some EU-funded projects and extra expenses for some ministries (including Interior, Justice, and Defense).

It took lawmakers 13 hours of debates to hold a final vote, after having approved the framework on Tuesday evening.

Earlier, they also set the deficit and the cap for new debt Bulgaria could take on next year.

MPs on Wednesday turned down a proposal by the Patriotic Front, a nationalist coalition backing the minority government which suggested that state subsidies allocated to parties with more than 1% of the vote in last general elections should be cut in half.

This keeps in place the current conditions under which a party gets BGN 11 for each ballot cast for it in 2014, instead of BGN 6 as the Patriotic Front had suggested.

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