Bulgaria’s National Social Security Institute (NOI) is ready to react if it permitted to add Christmas bonuses to the pensions, the NOI Director, Hristina Mitreva, has announced.

In an interview for the Bulgarian National Radio on Sunday, Mitreva said that the final decision on Christmas bonuses has not been made, even though the Finance Minister Simeon Djankov said twice that there will be no Christmas bonuses this year.

“This is a political decision. I think that the final decision will be announced this week. I can say that if there is such a decision, NOI will make everything possible to make people happy,” Mitreva said.

She has also commented on the adopted amendments to the Bulgarian Social Insurance Code. In her opinion, they will lead to a financial stability of the pension reform.

“Currently, about 60% of the expenses for pension and compensations are financed through taxes. This means that many other sectors of the economy remain insufficiently financed and the solidarity principle, which is the basis of the pension system, is broken,” Mitreva said.

She has explained that it was not about nationalization of private contributions to professional pension funds.

“These are individual accounts of people. They are not personal accounts because in NOI the contribution is paid by the employer. People are not responsible for the fact that employers, for example, did not pay contributions or for the fact that when a person is sick or unemployed, no contributions are paid to the professional funds,” Mitreva said.

In her words, people have worked for Bulgaria and it would not be fair to receive as much money as there is in the professional funds.

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