Today's meeting of the National Council for Tripartite Cooperation, which discussed a draft government decree to raise the minimum wage from the current 477 euros to 550 euros as of 1 January 2025, ended without consensus. 

Trade unions supported the proposal, while employers' organisations opposed it, arguing that the calculations were inadequate and the mechanism for doing so contradicted international law and would cause social and economic damage, as the proposed level was highly inflated. 

According to Vasil Velev, chairman of the board of the Industrial Capital Association in Bulgaria, no new minimum wage rate should be set for next year until the EU directive on adequate minimum wages is adopted. He argued that the proposed increase in the minimum wage "actually rewards the worst workers, those with the lowest qualifications, those with the worst work habits, at the expense of those with average and, in some areas, high qualifications". Lyudmila Petkova, the acting deputy prime minister and finance minister, said that the level of the minimum wage for next year had been set in accordance with current legislation.