GERB Vows to Up Salaries of Bulgarian Teachers, Military

Bulgaria's ruling GERB has promised increase of retirement pensions and salaries of a number of sectors, along with the minimum monthly wage in the eve of the general elections in 2013. File photo

Salaries of Bulgarian teachers will go up by 5% at the beginning of 2013, Education Minister, Sergey Ignatov, announced Monday.

The increase will be differentiated, according to delegated and local budgets, with schools with higher enrolment and better management getting higher amounts in the form of salaries.

According to Ignatov, the draft budget is yet to be discussed, but money for education will go up by at least BGN 121 M with a total budget of BGN 3 B, and another BGN 520 M in EU financing.

The Education Ministry itself will get an additional BGN 63 M to be used for increasing the amount per student which will reflect on teacher wages as well.

Meanwhile, Defense Minister, Anyu Angelov, announced that salaries of service people will go up by 9%, even 10%, with an agreement already reached between Prime Minister, Boyko Borisov and his Deputy, Finance Minister, Simeon Djankov.

All other employees in the defense sector will get an increase of 7%.

According to Angelov, all other benefits in the sector will remain untouched.

Regarding the controversial proposal to increase salaries in the Bulgarian military by economizing Defense Ministry's own funds such as introducing a retirement age for military officers, the Minister noted one of the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund, IMF, has been to limit possibilities for early retirement as a burden to the retirement system.

Military people declared in the aftermath they would give up on demands for increased pay in order to keep their benefits.

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