News

Half a year after the beginning of the state of emergency and the accompanying economic crisis, the labor market is showing signs of recovery. However, regional dynamics in unemployment levels reveal deepening problems at the municipal level.

This year passes in the conditions of some significant events that dominate the economic and public agenda in our country - the admission to ERM II, the pandemic and the economic crisis, the protests and the resignations of the government and the Prosecutor General. Along with these topics, however, there are other processes that are also of great importance for the development of the country. This is exactly the case with the regional planning for the next 7 years (for the period 2021-2027), which will predetermine the trajectory of development of the municipalities and regions in our country.

With the beginning of the new school year next week, we turn our attention to the teaching staff in the schools and their distribution on the regional map. The ratio of the number of teachers to the number of students at the municipal level is a sign of the ability of the local education system to organize a normal educational process.

On the economic map of Bulgaria, Stara Planina is the big divider. While to the south of it, along the Trakia highway, there is a practically continuous belt of highly developed areas, to the north there are several unconnected "islands" of more violent activity. The upswing at the end of the previous decade has had a beneficial effect on some of the northern local economies, especially Gabrovo and Varna, but others have lagged behind - in investment, income and poverty. Here we focus on two such northern districts - Shumen and Targovishte, whose economic trajectory largely overlaps in the period after the last great crisis.

In 2020, the conclusion is once again confirmed that changes in local taxes follow the electoral cycle very closely - there are almost no increases in the election years, but this retention is invariably made up for in the first years of the mandate. Last autumn's local elections, however, were followed by a kind of anti-record for the last decade.

A few months ago, the IME published a discussion paper on populism in the economy and the regulation of human action. It examines five areas of economic life - from the shared economy to social activities, in which there is a gap between real needs / decisions and the current regulatory framework. One of the main focuses in the material is precisely the restrictions on pharmacies in the country and the lack of access to medicines in small settlements.

The annual review of the use of EU funds by the districts and municipalities in the country, which is made by the IME on the basis of the data published in the UMIS and UMIS 2020 systems, does not hide any special surprises. The end of the programming period (everything will be paid in the next two years) largely confirms the existing trends and distribution, and the leading "news" is that there is no municipality without a European project.