How do Bulgarian political parties plan to grow the country’s digital economy?

Political candidates seem to all agree that Bulgaria quickly needs a working e-government to unload the administrative burden from both citizens and businesses and provide fast access to services.

Amidst a worsening health crisis, with Bulgaria ranking first in the EU in terms of COVID-19 death toll, and heated corruption scandals, the digital acceleration of the Bulgarian economy becomes even more important as a way forward. The previous parliament, which was dismissed in September, started some important initiatives in the area. It formed a designated commission for digitalization and e-governance and it started working on some legislative proposals such as introducing an e-identity and alterations of the commercial law to make more flexible rules for pool vesting, tag-along, drag-along, etc. The vice-chairman of BESCO, a Bulgarian NGO, pushing for legislative changes to update the framework for innovation businesses, said in an interview for The Recursive that the new parliament will need to have at least six months’ life to adopt these changes. The Recursive asked 6 parties that are projected to hold seats in the next Parliament by election polls, for their views on: -Key reforms that can speed up the growth of the value-added economy;

-How to build a startup-friendly business environment that attracts capital and talent from everywhere

-R&D investments and sustainability goals;

Four political candidates responded to our request. You can see their full positions on thi link: https://therecursive.com/how-do-bulgarian-political-parties-plan-to-grow-the-country-s-digital-economy/

You can also compare their ideas on:

-Remote work regulations

– E-governance roadmap

– Maximum insurable earnings raise

– Designated Ministry for innovation and research

Political candidates seem to all agree that Bulgaria quickly needs a working e-government to unload the administrative burden from both citizens and businesses and provide fast access to services. They think this should happen not only through building an adequate infrastructure, but also through the optimization of the processes and the administration. Millions have been spent on e-government projects so far with poor results.

That is why the anti-establishment parties stress that reducing the regulatory burden is important to improve the business environment, but a zero tolerance for corruption is needed to actually achieve that.

Political candidates also state that the missing ingredient for the scalability of the Bulgarian innovation ecosystem is modernizing education and improving the cooperation between universities and businesses. All propose increasing the budget for R&D as a percentage of the GDP and creating conditions for the private sector to invest significant amounts in R&D.