Commission Vice-President Calls on Bulgaria to Introduce Transparency Register

European Commission Vice-President Kristalina Georgieva. Photo: BGNES

European Commission Vice-President Kristalina Georgieva advised Bulgaria to introduce a transparency register similar to that established by the EU.

Georgieva pointed that the Commission introduced a transparency register this year and if a Commissioner is meeting a private organisation or NGO it has to appear on the register.

The Vice-President commented the five recommendations, which the Commission recently issued to Bulgaria as necessary for addressing the country's macroeconomic imbalances.

According to her, the Bulgarian government should not postpone the asset-quality review and the stress tests of the banking sector, she said in an interview for Darik radio on Saturday.

The national reform programme, which the government adopted recently, foresees the stress tests to be carried out in the second quarter of 2016 and the results to be announced at the earliest in July next year.

This will provide time for the banks to prepare for the procedure and would allow for the election of a new governor of the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB), as the term of the incumbent expires in the autumn.

She identified the election of new governor of BNB as being very important and proposed the introduction of an ethical code.

Georgieva called for a stricter banking supervision to avoid repetition of cases such as the one surrounding the insolvency of Corporate Commercial Bank (KTB).

In her words, the EU insisted for the stress tests to be carried out with the participation of the European institutions, which would guarantee an objective and impartial analysis.

She called for checks to be made to establish whether risks were present in other sections in the financial system, such as the pension funds and the insurance companies.

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