Bulgarian Social Minister Sacheva: 28 Social Care Homes Will Be Closed

Indeed, there are social care homes where conditions are highly unacceptable, admitted Minister of Labor and Social Policy Denitsa Sacheva before journalists in parliament, BGNES reported.

Today, a new report of the Council of Europe's Anti-Torture Committee (CPT) was announced, according to which the treatment, conditions and legal guarantees offered to psychiatric patients and residents of social institutions in Bulgaria are still not in line with the Council's recommendations.

“We have made the decision to close the homes in Kudellin and Govezhda now, and the home in Samuil next year. The CPT report to the Council of Europe is something that we have long been aware of and we are doing what is necessary now,” Sacheva also commented.

The Minister said she did not expect an extraordinary rise in unemployment. We continue to register about 1,000 – 1,100 people a day, Sacheva reported.

She also said there would likely be an extension of  60/40, 80/20 and "Keep Me" measures.

"The measures we have taken together with the Ministry of Economy are now worth over BGN 1.1 billion. These are funds that have already been paid off to the Bulgarian business. Under the 60/40 measure alone, the funds are around BGN 565 million by 1 December", said Sacheva and assured that the state is ready with BGN 50 million meant for the closed businesses. By the end of the year, the business will be supported with an further BGN 200 million and additional BGN 300 million is planned for the following year.

  "Certainly, despite these efforts, there are probably employers who couldn't fit in these measures. There are different situations, different cases, but we are doing everything we can to keep at least 350,000 jobs. We don't expect extraordinary unemployment growth at the moment, but we are still closely monitoring the numbers. At this stage we have not seen a rise in the last few days," the social minister said.

In connection with the upcoming discussion in the Tripartite Cooperation Council on the changes of successive amendments to the Labor Code, Denitsa Sacheva explained: "I share the view that it is good to have firm anti-crisis legislation. When we compare Bulgaria with Germany, for example, this is exactly the main difference – there is permanent legislation in place, which is immediately activated in the event of a crisis. The second difference in terms of efficiency comes from the fact that Germany uses more national funds, unlike us, who currently use also European funds to support business". /BGNES

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