Bulgarian Municipalities Want Double Budgets by 2020

The National Association of Municipalities in the Republic of Bulgaria (NAMRB) has a strategic goal of increasing the share of municipal budgets in the GDP must from 5.2% to 11.8% by 2020.

Emil Savov, Deputy CEO of the NAMRB, argued Friday at the 17th national meeting of financiers from Bulgarian municipalities in Albena that Bulgarian municipalities had to adopt modern EU practices in the sphere of local self-governance by achieving a balance between rights, responsibilities and resources.

He claimed that the share of municipal expenditure had to grow from the current 15.4% to 24% of total public spending over the next few years, thereby alleviating the existing scarcity of funding for road maintenance, housing policy, healthcare, urban environment reconstruction, etc.

Savov added that the ratio of local to delegated services in municipalities, now at 40:60, had to change dramatically to 80:20 in the new programming period, stressing that the aim was to make delegated services local.

He made clear that the NAMRB would seek to increase the share of municipal investments from 25% to 70% of total public investments by 2020.

During the meeting, NAMRB representatives noted that people were using municipal infrastructure in 90% of their life and insisted that the investment resources had to be spent on a local level.

The participants in the meeting are to establish an expert network of municipal financiers.

During the meeting, which continues on Saturday, representatives of local authorities are to discuss ways of reducing the financial risk in the implementation of EU projects in the new programming period.

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