The ruling parties do not plan to bring the budget deficit below 3%, Democratic Bulgaria (DB) MPs Martin Dimitrov and Vladislav Panev said today.

They spoke to reporters in parliament before an extraordinary session of the budget committee. The committee is discussing several bills, among them changes to the Fiscal Council and Automatic Corrective Mechanisms Act and to the Public Finance Act.

Dimitrov said the ruling parties are not limiting the deficit but scrapping the rules that force corrections and spending cuts. "The ruling parties say they will do what they want and spend for as long as they are in power, 'like a madman with a machine gun'. We will all pay the bill," he said.

Dimitrov believes the loans the state pours into the economy push up demand and prices, and the situation is turning critical. He warned of a hard winter with huge inflation, a poor international climate and an unreasonable government that fuels inflation.

Full power does not mean impunity, he added. He said the ruling parties must start taking steps against the deficit, and the budget is a key moment that must not be missed.

DB expects a new proposal, probably on Friday, that half of the contributions to the second pension pillar, or 2.5 percentage points, would go to the National Social Security Institute (NOI) instead of private funds. Panev called it a new tax of 1bn euros, nearly 1% of GDP, which will fall on citizens.

Dimitrov noted that anyone who wants to can already move their money to the NOI, while the ruling parties want the transfer to happen automatically. He said this amounts to "nationalisation and an attack on private funds". If they start with pension funds, he warned, they will not stop there: they could do the same with everything.

Panev said the ruling parties want to cut the deficit with extra money from citizens, not by trimming spending. He said nobody has done this, even in a deep crisis, and the deficit should come down through spending cuts.

"Just two days after the runoff, the ruling parties are showing their horns and shooting at public finances," Panev said. The rise in natural gas prices was announced the day after the election.

The two also spoke about National Audit Office audits, which found irregularities for 2020–2026, including a hidden deficit and the transfer of a budget. Panev said it is an open secret that since the pandemic, spending has been understated and revenue overstated every year to keep the deficit at 3%.

Dimitrov said such cases happened under GERB and DPS, and called for a check that goes all the way. Asked about DB also being in government at the time, he said he wants to see case by case who was finance minister and who allowed it, "the full final specifics".