More transparent action against the crisis, preservation of macroeconomic stability and the low tax rates, reduction of social security contribution and, most importanty, institutional guarantees for a fair treatment of businesses in the fight against corruption – this is the consensus among Bulgaria’s business leaders about the new Cabinet, which will be sworn in on Monday.

The economic turmoil is heaping up new troubles on the agenda of the new leadership, adding to pressing problems that have plagued each sector long before the crisis broke. Thus, easing the social security burden is no more just a measure to improve the business environment and bolster competitiveness but is widely considered as the most powerful weapon against rising unemployment, according to Vassil Velev, chairman of the Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association (BICA), and Ivo Prokopiev, chairman of the Confederation of Employers and Industrialists in Bulgaria (CEIB) and co-publisher of Dnevnik.

Businesses also said the government should aim at a balanced budget in order to ward off a downward revision of the country’s credit ratings, which would disturb the flow of investments and credit resources into Bulgaria. Negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and regaining the trust of the European Commission (EC) are essential for Bulgaria’s eurozone entry and for unfreezing the funding under the operational programmes, Prokopiev reckons.

Curbing the grey economy should be another to priority of the new government, said Kamen Kolev, deputy chairman of the Bulgarian Industrial Association. The ongoing slide in tax receipts is not the effect of smaller industrial order intakes but mostly of the proliferating grey sector, he explained.

The consensus among businesspeople is that the new ministers should be good experts and administrators and incoming prime minister Boyko Borissov should guarantee that abuses and incompetence will not be tolerated.