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Press review

Photo: Maria Peeva

Trud daily frontpages on Friday a headline: “The National Assembly and its Spongers”. The newspaper is indignant with the embarrassing decisions of the MPs taken in the first working days of the country’s new Parliament. The author of the article comments that the newly-elected members of Parliament are “from the same brood as their forerunners”. The MPs have decided that their total annual leave should amount to two whole months, or one-sixth of the calendar year. Only the annual leave of the Bulgarian teachers and actors is as long. However, the salaries of the Bulgarian teachers and actors are meager, whereas the other priority of the Bulgarian MPs regards high wages, Trud daily adds. In this context the newspaper notes that the proposal of the Bulgarian Socialist Party that the salaries of the MPs should be frozen was rejected. Thus, the salaries of the Bulgarian members of Parliament will equal three average salaries and will be recalculated once every three months. The Bulgarian voters have to put up with the fact that their representatives at the National Assembly will also receive Life insurance at their expense. Moreover, they receive two extra monthly salaries to buy clothing. Trud turns down the usual excuses that the incomes of the Bulgarian MPs should compare with the European standards and quotes a research published at the Irish newspaper The Journal based on data of the World Bank and the National Assemblies of the countries included in the survey. According to that survey, the salaries of the Bulgarian MPs are higher as compared to the ones of their colleagues at the German Bundestag. The survey also reminds that right ahead of the referendum on Brexit the British MPs were deprived of the right to receive free of charge tea, sweets and taxi services. Moreover, the rules related to the use of free hotel accommodation, reception of guests and other goodies became more stringent. In conclusion Trud daily comments skeptically that although there are many new MPs at the 44th Bulgarian National Assembly, the tempers remain the same. Finally, the newspaper calls a French proverb to mind “The more things change, the more they stay the same”.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov


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