The poverty line for 2025 should be BGN 667, according to trade unions

The poverty line for 2025 should be BGN 667, not BGN 638 as proposed by the Council of Ministers. This is what the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria believes. The trade union says that it does not accept the approach for determining the size of the poverty line and will not support the proposed draft decree of the Council of Ministers in this regard.

The trade union recalls that in 2019 the Methodology for determining the poverty line was adopted by government decree. According to it, the size of the poverty line for the country is determined on the basis of the data on the poverty line from the Eurostat survey for the previous year, after which the amount is indexed with the prices of the small basket for December of the previous year on an annual basis, the trade union explained.

The trade union insists that the methodology for determining the poverty line be seriously revised by defining the minimum needs to guarantee a certain social minimum per person in a household, the position paper said. The trade union considers it imperative to carry out an annual assessment/check on the adequacy of the poverty line, "by comparing it with a targeted consumer basket designed to guarantee the social minimum per household head".

At the beginning of July, the draft decree of the Council of Ministers was published, with which the government proposed that the poverty line from 1 January 2025 should become BGN 638. The deadline for discussion is 12 August, inclusive.

For this year the poverty line is BGN 526.