Bill to supplement the Social Security Code

MR HASSAN ADEMOV
CHAIRMAN OF THE LABOR COMMITTEE,
SOCIAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC POLICY
TO THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

COPY:

MR IVAILLO CALFIN
DEPUTY MINISTER PRESIDENT
ON DEMOGRAPHIC AND SOCIAL POLICY
MINISTER OF LABOR AND SOCIAL POLICY
AND CHAIRMAN OF THE NATIONAL COUNCIL
FOR TRIPARITE COOPERATION

REGARDING: Bill to supplement the Social Security Code, No. 554-01-165, submitted by Dragomir Stoynev and a group of people's representatives on 14.10.2015.

DEAR MR ADEMOV,

In connection with the draft law to supplement the Social Security Code sent to us for opinion, the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria expresses the following opinion:

With the proposal made for an amendment to the CSR submitted for discussion in the National Assembly, it is proposed to increase the amount of the allowance for raising a small child, which is paid to the mother from the age of 1 to 2 years of the child and to tie it to the amount of the minimum wage.

The proposed proposal does not correspond to the principled position of the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria to remove the "binding" of the minimum wage from all payments that are not related to labor income. This principled approach was adopted by all social partners, as a result of which a number of changes in the Bulgarian legislation followed in the direction of "untying" of social and insurance payments from the amount of the national unemployment benefit allocated to the country.

In our opinion, the current regulation is sufficiently flexible and in no way restricts the legislator from determining a fixed amount of this compensation in an amount significantly larger than the amount of the national unemployment insurance. This is foreseen to be done annually by the Law on the Budget of the Public Educational Institutions, based on an assessment of the possibilities of the budget.

In the event that the proposed addition to the CSR is accepted, we fear that this could lead to other similar proposals and a return to a decision to tie all social and insurance payments to the amount of the minimum wage, which will create an additional burden on the budget of Ltd.

With respect,
Eugene Ivanov
Ex. director