Vasil Velev: Europe is deindustrializing at a very fast pace because of the Green Deal, the lack of workers and expensive energy

The Deputy Minister of Economy and Industry Nikolay Pavlov presented some of the ministry's priorities to the National Council of the Association of Industrial Capital in Bulgaria (AICB). Among them are the accession of Bulgaria to the Eurozone, Schengen and OECD, easing and speeding up the processes for securing qualified labor from third countries, reducing the regulatory burden, coordination of the Strategy for SMEs. According to him, these will be the key priorities that will be focused on during the official cabinet.

"The economic situation in Europe and in our country is not good. Europe is deindustrializing at a very rapid pace. Last year, the European economy grew by only 0.4%, and for this year, the forecast is again for a growth of less than 1 percent. The reasons for this are many, but the most serious are the Green Deal, expensive energy, many regulations and the lack of human resources in all dimensions - quantity, quality, education and motivation. Ministry of Economy and Industry is our ministry, the ministry of business. It makes the economic policies that affect us all. I hope that together we can work to improve the business environment and improve the competitiveness of Bulgarian companies," said AICB Board Chairman Vasil Velev.

Deputy Minister Pavlov was categorical that the problems of the big engines of the European economy - Germany, Sweden, Denmark and Austria inevitably affect our country. And he pointed out that one of the main tasks before the ministry is joint work with the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy to speed up the processes of attracting and retaining qualified labor from third countries, while at the same time the training and retraining of the available labor must and will continue.

According to him, the first steps to be taken are the identification of the required workforce profiles and the identification of markets from which to work on their attraction. Such legislative steps were taken in recent days for personnel in tourism, Nikolay Pavlov added.

"The aim is to ease this whole long process. The role of the MII will be to attract the Offices for Trade and Economic Affairs in the countries identified as possible markets. They will provide assistance to our embassies and consulates, as well as provide the necessary information on human resources and documentally process the information until it reaches the Bulgarian labor market," the Deputy Minister also stated.

AICB proposed at a meeting of the National Economic Council to consider the possibility of introducing the German model for employment support (Kurzarbeit) in Bulgaria.

The model is similar to the "60/40" measure, and its introduction makes it possible to preserve employment in short-term periods of low business load in sectors affected by external causes.

During the meeting of the National Council, the implementation of the European ESG norms and their effect on the activity of Bulgarian enterprises was also discussed. New members were also accepted, with which the Association further increased its representativeness.