Vasil Velev, chairman of the Association of Industrial Capital in Bulgaria, said on Nova TV that many people now feel misled, as they had been assured that neither taxes nor social security contributions would increase. Instead, he argued, households are facing higher costs. According to him, Bulgaria is accumulating new debt at a rate of about 60 million leva per day, while an average working family will effectively lose around 100 leva per month because of rising contribution rates. Velev added that families will incur additional debt despite already paying more into the system.

He said employers had offered an alternative approach that would avoid raising contribution rates, doubling the dividend tax or imposing additional burdens linked to pensions. The proposal included a 5 percent salary increase and adjusting administrative costs to match inflation. Velev insisted that such a plan could still be implemented and that it would avoid further pressure on workers.

Velev warned that discontent over Budget 2026 is widespread across companies and employer groups at local, branch and national levels. In his view, the draft budget is seen as deeply unfair and detrimental to roughly two million people employed in the real economy. He added that unless national employer organisations take the lead in responding to this dissatisfaction, they risk becoming irrelevant.

Concerns were echoed by Dobrin Ivanov, the Association’s executive director, who told bTV that he does not expect major revisions to Budget 2026 between the first and second readings. He stressed that spending continues to grow faster than revenue and that several long-delayed reforms need to be addressed to prevent further imbalance.

Lyuboslav Kostov from the Confederation of Bulgarian Industrialists and Trade Unions said that workers from what he called “chronically underfunded institutions” plan to protest. He noted that the new budget offers clear benefits for certain groups, including a 12 percent increase for employees in the police and judicial system, but argued that structural inefficiencies remain. As an example, he pointed to advisory bodies that operate with minimal public visibility but still maintain full-time staff, such as the Council for Promoting Agricultural Cooperation with China, which he said has five positions funded for years without tangible public benefit.