"DPS-New Beginning" will submit to parliament a Law on the Maximum Markup, the press center of the formation announced. The aim of the bill is to tighten control over prices and markups of essential products by the end of 2026 due to the transition to the common European currency and the protection of end consumers from speculation and bad commercial practices.
The bill provides for the adoption by the Council of Ministers of the so-called consumer basket, which includes basic food products and goods such as flour, bread, milk, sugar, rice, etc., and the introduction of a 20% ceiling on the markup of goods from the basket between the manufacturer or importer and the end consumers, "DPS-New Beginning" points out.
The motivations for the bill state that similar models are applied in most European countries such as Germany, France, Greece and Spain.
The control for violators will be carried out by the Commission for the Protection of Competition (CPC), the National Revenue Agency (NRA) and the Consumer Protection Commission (CPC), and the fines for violators are between 5,000 and 20,000 euros.
The bill is mainly aimed at supporting and protecting socially vulnerable groups - pensioners, families with children and households with low incomes, for whom food expenses exceed 50% of monthly incomes.
The chairman of the newly formed Coordination Center for the Euro in Bulgaria, Vladimir Ivanov, announced yesterday that violations were detected in about seven percent of all sites checked in connection with the introduction of the single currency.
The percentage of imposed sanctions during the checks related to the introduction of the euro in our country gives us reason to assume that things are developing well, i.e. there are no mass violations. This was stated by the executive director of the National Revenue Agency, Hristo Markov. Sanctions are not an end in themselves. Fines are a tool for punishing unscrupulous traders and for preserving the correct ones, Markov commented.