Bulgarian government to meet projected budget deficit target of 5.7%

The 2026 state budget deficit will remain within the projected target of 5.7%, while the fifth payment under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) is not expected to have an impact on the figure. Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Galab Donev said this during a parliamentary question-and-answer session. The opposition asked whether the fifth RRP payment, amounting to more than €1.8 billion, would reduce the projected deficit.

Galab Donev said that, according to preliminary data, the budget deficit stood at 2.8% of GDP at the end of September. He noted that, traditionally, a substantial volume of expenditure is concentrated in the final quarter of the year, including social payments, capital expenditure, funding for road maintenance and other spending.

In September, Bulgaria recorded monthly deflation of 0.3% for the second time this year, following the previous decline in June. However, annual inflation continued to accelerate, reaching 5.6%, according to flash data from the National Statistical Institute.

Edited by Ivo Ivanov