Bulgaria’s budget 2010 is shifting the burden of the economic meltdown to hired labourers and the very poor, the nation’s main unions, CITUB and Podkrepa, said in a joint statement.

Speaking at yesterday’s session of the national tripartite council -- a structure which brings together government, employer and employee representatives -- ahead of submission of the bill with Parliament on Wednesday, unions cautioned that squeezing out allocations for measures to shore up the labour market will raise the jobless rate to 15-16% at the end of 2010.

“As the crisis is going from bad to worse, the government is trying to cut costs, jeopardising social benefits payments,” said Plamen Dimitrov, vice-president of the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB).

CITUB president Zhelyazko Hristov sounded the alarm that the proposed cutbacks could set off a wave of protests.

While criticised by unions, budget 2010 got the thumbs-up by business groups. The Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria (CEIBG) said in a statement that the bill lives up to the reality of the worldwide crisis. The organisation threw its weight behind the planned taxation and social security targets aimed at safeguarding economic stability while incentivising businesses and investment activity.

The Bulgarian Industrial Association (BIA) backed the ambition of the Cabinet dominated by right-of-centre party GERB to put together a “balanced and cautious: budget but said the expected 2% fall of the gross domestic product (GDP) was too optimistic.