An increase in the salaries is possible from 2014 on, according to Petar Chobanov, Bulgaria's newly sworn-in Finance Minister.

"Bulgaria needs measures to uplift the economy, create jobs, revive small and medium-sized enterprises. We have made concrete promises which we will fulfill. It is merely a question of time, that is, when we shall have enough money to do that. Incomes depend on the state of the economy," Chobanov stated in a Friday interview for the Bulgarian National Television.

"Financial stability is not enough, we must think about growth too. The idea behind the policies we shall be implementing is to target growth," he added.

Bulgaria's new Finance Minister claimed that the budget hole indicated that the administrations of the Finance Ministry and the National Revenue Agency (NRA) had not done their job properly.

Chobanov added that the issue of a senior-level reshuffle at the Customs Agency and the NRA was still on the table.

As regards allegations about a restart of the abandoned Belene Nuclear Power Plant project, Chobanov said that the situation had to be carefully analyzed in economic terms, adding that there was no government decision on the relaunch of the N-plant project on June 5.

"We have to be careful about creating expectations about such a restart. We need to see the calculations first. I cannot share the enthusiasm about restarting the construction of the Belene NPP," Chobanov stated.

The center-right government of former PM Boyko Borisov scrapped the project for the construction of Belene back in March 2012. The move led Russia's Rosatom to file a suit with an international arbitration court in Paris.

After it was first started in the 1980s, the construction of Bulgaria's second nuclear power plant at Belene on the Danube was stopped in the early 1990s over lack of money and environmental protests.

The Belene NPP has been de facto frozen since the fall of 2009 when the previously selected strategic investor, the German company RWE, which was supposed to provide EUR 2 B in exchange for a 49% stake, pulled out.

Borisov and his Cabinet resigned in February amidst mass protest rallies against unbearable utility bills and wide-spread poverty.