All State servants will now have up to 25 days of paid annual leave, according to a decision of the cabinet of the ruling, center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party, GERB.

The decision was made during the Tuesday meeting of the Council of Ministers.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Simeon Djankov, explained that the decision recommends to all State institutions and administrations, effective "immediately" to make the leave equal to the one in the private sector – 20 days for standard work day and another 5 for a non-standard one.

Until now, the State Servants Act provided for 20 plus 12 days, respectively. The remaining 7 days will be used for mandatory staff development classes.

The idea behind the move is to improve the quality of services provided by State servants and their career advancement. The funds for such staff development are slated in the budget of each institution, but until now have been largely untapped.

According to Djankov, there are two Ministries with existing Class Labor Contracts – of Defense and of Interior. In the Defense Ministry, the changes will happen in March, while in the Interior one, Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, had voiced preparedness to begin "moving in this direction."

At the end of 2010, the unused paid leave in State Administration, had been 2 170 million days; in 2009 – nearly 3 million, and in 2011 - about 1.9 million, the Finance Minister informed.

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