The Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria (CEIBG) has called on the competent authorities to not yield to protesters or any other type of non-economic pressure in the attempts to handle growing public discontent over high electricity prices.

Bulgarians have been staging rallies against the high prices of electricity and heating in a number of cities for the past few days.

CEIBG executive director Evgeniy Ivanov met Wednesday with senior officials of power distributors EVN and CEZ, both companies being members of CEIBG, to discuss the mounting tension over energy prices.

During the talks, the parties backed the stance of CEIBG that the commercial dispute about energy prices was to be resolved by competent bodies such as watchdogs, the Commission for Consumer Protection, and the Commission on Protection of Competition, while all sorts of non-economic pressures were inadmissible.

The employer association, as cited by 24 Hours daily, noted that Bulgaria was a country in which the rule of law prevailed and the statutory procedures were to be observed.

The CEIBG further condemned the calls for the nationalization of power distributors, saying that they were a relapse into totalitarian thinking 24 years after the start of the so-called transition period and only served narrow party interests.

The CEIBG declared that the competent bodies were to decide how to handle the situation in a calm environment and after wide-ranging public debate in order to preserve Bulgaria's reputation as a country where the rule of law reins supreme.