18.10.2011

The crisis has removed the cliché of the \"East-West\" division in Europe, the Finance Minister said at a lecture in Bucharest

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Simeon Djankov was awarded the International Prize of Forbes Romania \"For outstanding contribution to preserving financial and economic stability under the conditions of the most severe crisis in decades\" in Bucharest today. Bulgaria and Poland were the countries awarded the prestigious prize of this year\'s international forum, organized by Forbes and the Romanian newspaper \"Adevarul\". The crisis has removed the cliché of the \"East-West\" division in Europe and this division will never restore. In future we will talk about financially and economically stable and unstable countries, stressed in his address the Bulgarian Finance Minister. \"This award is recognition for the entire government and the efforts we made in the past two years, despite the difficult conditions,\" added Deputy Prime Minister Simeon Djankov. In the Romanian capital, he was special guest at the conference and delivered a lecture on \"Europe and the debt crisis: financial stability measures in national legislations\".

According to the Finance Minister, at the beginning of each crisis markets usually overreact and governments should also act promptly. The governments of some EU countries had not acted that way and it has led to serious deepening of the problems there, said in his lecture Simeon Djankov. He stressed that the Bulgarian government had the courage to reduce public spending by 15% after its assumption of office in the midst of the crisis in 2009, and then it managed not to raise direct taxes in order to avoid further increase of the burden on businesses and households. Simeon Djankov also reminded that at the beginning of the year the government proposed to limit its public spending to 40%, as well as a budget deficit threshold of 2% of GDP as set out in the Financial Stability Pact. \"Our government debt is 15% of GDP and our country is not threatened by the debt crisis,\" the Finance Minister said.

The forum in Bucharest was also attended by Romanian Prime Minister Emil Boc, the country\'s Finance Minister Gheorghe Ialomitianu, the Deputy Finance Minister of Poland, leading economists and business representatives from the region.