The state starts the year with a debt issue of €150 million

The Ministry of Finance is starting the year as it spent half of the previous one – by issuing 300 million loans (in levs). On Tuesday, the Bulgarian National Bank (BNB) announced that in a week's time it will hold an auction for two-year government securities (GS) worth €150 million (around BGN 300 million).

A check of the Ministry of Finance's data shows that no issue with such a maturity has been placed in 2025. In fact, a similar maturity was used only in 2012, but at that time much less funds were raised from the domestic market – between BGN 20 and 35 million at each of the four auctions at that time.

We would like to remind you that throughout last year, issues totaling BGN 3.3 billion were placed on the domestic market, which is almost a historic record. Only in 2014 was more money withdrawn from local investors, but at that time the state was desperately seeking funds to deal with the consequences of the bankruptcy of Corporate Commercial Bank (CCB).

The total debt issued in 2025 (including international issues) is close to BGN 18 billion. In the ill-fated 2026 budget, the outgoing finance minister, Temenuzhka Petkova, had set an even higher ceiling on new debt – over EUR 10 billion.

Translated with DeepL.