Bulgaria’s Parliament Slashes Salaries, Sells Cars

The Bulgarian Parliament will be selling its oldest cars in order to save money. Photo by BGNES

The Bulgarian Parliament is considering several options for austerity measures in order to reduce its expenses.

The Parliament plans to save BGN 8 M by the end of the year by freezing the salaries of the MPs and slashing the additional fees that they receive.

In addition, the Parliament administration is trying to decide how best to get rid of 30 of its 116 cars.

The cars might be auctioned, donated to another institution, or their use might be limited in order to save money from expenses for gas.

According to Krasimir Velchev, Co-Chair of the Parliamentary group of the ruling GERB party, the 30 oldest cars, which were purchased back in 1996, have to be sold because they are not safe.

He has pointed out that the sale of the cars is not expected to generate much money but that the Parliament administration will be able to save money from maintenance costs once it gets rid of them.

“Bulgarian MPs can travel on weekends with their own vehicles, and can use the Parliament cars on work days,” commented the Co-Chair of the rightist Blue Coalition Martin Dimitrov. When asked how the 240 MPs will get around if the number of the Parliament cars is reduced, Dimitrov said, “The Prime Minister urged us to ride bikes but he did not say what brand of bikes. We are awaiting his intervention in the debate about how to cut the expenses of the Parliament. We haven’t see any members of the Cabinet go to work by bicycles after his call. If all institutions slash their expenses like the Parliament, the budget deficit will be much lower.”

“I don’t see which one of the MPs is going to ride a bike early in the morning in Sofia with all the paperwork they drag around just for one single day in the Parliament. This is just not serious,” stated Parliament Chair Tsetska Tsacheva.

She admitted that her original idea to buy new vehicles with the money from the sale of old cars was unrealistic.

“Who is going to buy these cars and on what price?!,” commented Socialist Party leader and ex PM Sergey Stanishev describing the idea of the Parliament administration to sell the older cars as “ludicrous.”

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