Fledgling businesses and businesses that have been functioning for over one year cannot be put on a similar basis, Chairman of the Association Professional Forum for Education Yurij Andjekarski told Horizont channel of the Bulgarian National Radio:

The bureaucratic pressure over start-up companies should stop, because even fledgling firms with medium capacity cannot meet all requirements. For instance, the authorities should not require occupational medicine contracts two or three months after the registration of a given company.

It is high time we abandoned the illusion that Bulgaria is a small European country, because this not true, Mr Andjekarski went on to say:

 No citizen of Israel, Finland or Belgium for instance would say his country is small. That is why we have no reason to have inferiority complexes. We should not wonder why fledgling small and medium-sized businesses are not placed in the same conditions as those in older EU member states. Bulgaria is not a new EU member state anymore. The cohesion programmes will continue to exist and function in the next EU programming period. The big problem is not in the EU funds. It stems from the fact that Bulgaria does not follow the EU principle which reads: “Think Small First”, which means that the authorities should assess the impact on the small business during the implementation of each new statutory regulation.

Alleviations provided to start-up businesses and closing businesses is part of the economic cycle, i.e. a country’s economy runs better if those processes are fulfilled easier during the establishment and the closure of given firms. Thus, we allow those who are unable to do successful business in a given sphere to undertake and start a new initiative or business instead, Chief Expert in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises Policies Directorate with the Ministry of Economy Zhecho Zhechev told the BNR:

If business environment favors starting new businesses, it takes little time and efforts and people go through few procedures only. 45% of the companies are in trade field and the sector for repair of automobiles and motorcycles and most of them are micro and small enterprises. It is fairly easy to establish such companies. If those businesses do not achieve their targets quickly they close down their operations within a specified period.

The administrative burden creates a series of difficulties for the micro and small enterprises and often becomes the only reason for those businesses to terminate their actual economic activity, Zhecho Zhechev added. That is why the Bulgarian Ministry of Economy has been considering a set of proposals and has even fulfilled some of them:

Some administrative services have been already eliminated. Some taxes have been reduced and the deadlines necessary for the preparation of given services or documents were shortened. We hope those measures would reduce businesses costs and the companies would go through the administrative procedures quicker, Zhecho Zhechev further said.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov