The Commission on Protection of Competition has cancelled the Ministry of Economy’s initiative “Available to you” which aimed to lower the prices of around 50 products from the small consumer basket at chain stores.

• Ministry of Economy launches affordable products initiative

The initiative was supposed to have been launched on 1 November. According to the regulator, the initiative will result in restricting price competition among traders and is a violation of the constitutional principles of free economic initiative. The Commission is recommending “providing individual food packages and a warm lunch” as a way of coping with the increase in prices.

“The initiative is good, it is European and does not distort competition in any way, but it is very much delayed – by one year,” Assoc. Prof. Ognyan Boyukliev from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences’ Economic Research Institute commented for the BNR. “It is a good thing there will be no price caps. Price caps were put in place in Hungary that have already been done away with because they led to shortages,” Assoc. Prof. Ognyan Boyukliev said.

The Ministry of Economy said that they would not give up the initiative aimed at achieving better prices for consumers. "We have created a basis for competition between the various participants in the initiative for these 50 essential products," Minister of Economy Bogdan Bogdanov said in a televised interview. According to him, talks on the topic between the ministry and the Commission for the Protection of Competition are forthcoming.