In Violation of the Law: The Ministry of Finance Will Not Prepare a Medium-Term Forecast for the 2027 Budget

The Ministry of Finance (MF) will not prepare a medium-term budget forecast for the period 2027 – 2029 when presenting the 2027 draft budget. This became clear during the second reading of the 2026 state budget. Members of Parliament voted 124 in favor, 78 against and 1 abstention to repeal the requirement to submit such a document, which has traditionally been part of the budget procedure.

Specifically, Article 115 of the draft budget states that:

The Minister of Finance shall prepare and submit for approval by the Council of Ministers a draft decision on the 2027 budget procedure for the preparation of the 2027 state budget draft, and no medium-term budget forecast for the period 2027 – 2029 shall be prepared.”

At the same time the Public Finance Act stipulates that when the draft budget for the following year is submitted to the National Assembly the aforementioned medium-term forecast – which serves as the rationale for the proposed parameters – must also be submitted.

A review of the law by Economic.bg showed that Article 79, paragraph 4 states:

By October 31 the Council of Ministers shall submit to the National Assembly the approved draft state budget bill together with the updated medium-term budget forecast, which serves as the rationale for it, the adopted opinion under paragraph 1, item 3 and the budget formats of the primary budget administrators under the state budget, which correspond to the parameters of the state budget bill and the updated medium-term budget forecast.”

Translated with DeepL.