Very soon the payment of salaries and pensions will not be possible because the budget is about to fail. This is what the leaders of the Blue coalition said today, adding that they are ready to provide their ideas to the government so as to avoid a total catastrophe of the budget. The measures which the Blue coalition proposes are not new: expenditures cut, freeze of all big projects which will be finish far beyond 2009. According to Ivan Kostov, leader of the DSB, this week will be published the new figures that will show that the Bulgarian economy already is in a recession.

euinside asked whether only cutting of expenditures would be enough to overcome the budget deficit, forecast by the European Commission, as well as the trade balance deficit, Ivan Kostov said that because of the currency board there are not many things that can be done but he said that expenditure cuts would be sufficient to stabilise the budget.

Another issue that euinside follows is the promise the Blue coalition made to publish regularly relevant data about the real unemployment in Bulgaria, based on meetings of the Coalition with workers' associations and unions. When asked, the leaders of the Blue coalition said that because of their problems with the registration of one of their members - the UDF - they haven't started these meetings yet and they still don't have any new data to support their claims of hidden unemployment.

euinside has asked the Ministry of Finance what the financial situation of Bulgaria is right now and is waiting for an answer.