NEWS

Europe will remain a world power and enter a new phase of integration predicted Rosen Plevneliev to WSJ

In the long term, Europe will remain a world power and enter a new phase of integration, President Rosen Plevneliev predicted in an interview with prestigious financial daily The Wall Street Journal. The President spoke to the newspaper about the situation in the euro area and the opportunities that Bulgaria offers foreign investors.

President Plevneliev said that the country will join the euro in the long term, but would monitor the situation there. "We want to see a clear and politically sound plan and responsible policies in the implementation of this plan. We want to see action at the national level. I'm sure in a year, year and a half, the euro area will contain the problems and will again be on the right track,” he said.

Commenting on the debt problems of countries in the region, President Plevneliev said that Bulgaria is among the countries with the lowest tax burden. “But it's hard to explain to 7.4 million Bulgarians with their salaries and pensions of 500 euro and pensions from 150 to 160 euro, they have to pay the debts of someone who receives much higher salaries,” the President said. On the other hand, in Germany, people retire at 67 years, and France - 60 years. These inequalities also difficult to explain and efforts should be made to overcome them, he said.

At the beginning of 2013, a new law to encourage foreign investment in Bulgaria will come into law. With this law, we want to make it clear that Bulgaria welcomes foreign investors and is improving the business climate, the President told the WSJ. The law provides for specific measures to improve conditions for foreign investors by offering state to take care of the social insurance to their employees for a certain period of time, accelerated depreciation of assets, as well as incentives for staff training. The President said that the rate of tax on personal income and corporate tax in Bulgaria is only 10 per cent - among the lowest in the EU, the country is an example of a good collection of revenue resulting from lower tax burden. We are working to improve co-operation between the government and educational institutions as well as between universities and businesses to train more engineers, the President said.

“In the short term, too many politicians act so as to be re-elected. This is what I do not want to do. You get a five-year term, you promised, you need to deliver – and if you start explaining, well I’m thinking about re-election, people will say, ‘he’s trying to delay his promises, he’s trying to shift them to the next phase,’ well, this is not right, you promise, you have five years, you deliver, it’s as simple as that, and then people will decide,” President Plevneliev told the WSJ.

A video clip of the President’s interview with the Wall Street Journal may be seen at http://live.wsj.com/video/bulgarian-pres-plevnelievs-new-business-plan/DF2A77AD-B2C7-4AB4-BE5D-69D2285760A5.html?KEYWORDS=plevneliev#!DF2A77AD-B2C7-4AB4-BE5D-69D2285760A5