Bulgaria’s Govt approves bill on establishing Fiscal Council

Bulgaria’s government has approved a bill on the creation of a Fiscal Council.

The bill, titled Fiscal Council an Corrective Mechanisms Act, describes the new entity as an independent consultative body on issues of fiscal governance.

The Fiscal Council is to carry out independent monitoring and analysis of the budget framework so as to keep public finances on a sustainable path. It is to also to help raise awareness about fiscal governance of the country among the population.

The bill provides for the creation of automatic corrective mechanisms in the case of a substantial deviation from the medium-term budgetary strategy.

The introduction of the bill constitutes synchronization of Bulgarian legislation with EU law, the aim being to observe the fiscal rules set out in the Public Finance Act.

The introduction of the Fiscal Council in Bulgaria has already been delayed, causing the European Commission to send the country a letter of notification.

The most important function of the Fiscal Council is to monitor the observance of numerical fiscal rules in the budget.

As part of the procedure for the coordination and submission of the state budget, the social security budget, and the health budget, the Fiscal Council will submit a duly reasoned opinion as well as recommendations to the Parliament Speaker no later than 14 days after the submission of the respective bills to Parliament.