Bulgaria: Pension Boost Restored After Backlash Over Reduced Increase
The Bulgarian government has decided to increase all pensions starting July 1
Bulgaria is seeking to raise some EUR 1.3 B in new loans from foreign banks by end-2014 to finance budget deficit and provide liquidity support to banks, Reuters reported on Tuesday.
Attributing its information to unnamed inside sources, the newswire said Citigroup, Unicredit, Societe Generale, Deutsche Bank and HSBC had shown interest in providing bridge financing, to be refinanced by a global bonds issue, probably in the first half of next year.
Other potential bidders for the loan include Intesa Sanpaolo, BNP Paribas, KBC and Raiffeisen, JP Morgan and Bank of America.
The bridge financing will most probably be a “syndicated effort by four or five banks”, according to one of the sources.
Finance Minister Vladislav Goranov said last week that Bulgaria was likely to seek EUR 1.0-1.5 B (BGN 2.0-3.0 B) in bridge financing from foreign lenders as part of the planned 2014 budget update now before parliament. The government also plans to raise another BGN 2.0 B on the domestic market, most likely by issuing government securities, to cover repayment of state-guaranteed deposits at collapsed Corporate Commercial Bank, or KTB.
The Bulgarian Ministry of Finance has unveiled the draft State Budget for 2025, revealing a planned deficit of 6.4 billion leva
Financier Plamen Danailov, a municipal councilor from the "There Is Such a People" party, recently discussed Bulgaria's potential adoption of the euro
European Commissioner for Economy Valdis Dombrovskis has stated that Bulgaria's objective of joining the eurozone on January 1, 2026
In Krivodol, a municipality in Northwestern Bulgaria, local authorities are taking steps toward the eurozone transition well ahead of the February 20 deadline
Boyko Borissov, leader of GERB, defended the government’s progress on Bulgaria’s path to the eurozone
Bulgaria could adopt the euro as its official currency from January 1, 2026, if it successfully meets the necessary criteria for joining the eurozone
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