Environmentalist Alexander Dunchev warned of a huge risk to forests in Bulgaria. He revealed that Finance Minister Assen Vassilev is proposing that they become joint-stock companies.
„This is a huge risk for forests, because all public functions such as nature, free access, etc. will go into the background, and only the profit from logging will be pursued. However, the even greater risk is their gradual privatization,“, Dunchev warned.
He raised the question why Vassilev did not propose the other option – for the state forests to be part of the Forestry Agency with the power of an institution? Both the EC and the OECD want a decision to be made to let us into the Eurozone, but they leave it to the Council of Ministers to decide which of the two options should be implemented.
„The answer is that Vassilev is not alone in the scandal! He would not have come up with this decision in the last minutes of the „Denkov“ cabinet, if the MFA had implemented a previous decision of the caretaker government from December 2022, on the transformation of state-owned enterprises into economic entities to the budget!“, Alexander Dunchev pointed out and added:
„Now the last chance for the state forests is for Minister of Agriculture Kiril Vatev, to stand against Vassilev and block his decision, or to amend it, so that the state forests become either economic subjects of the state budget, or an institution. This is anything but the Change we’ve been fighting for and longing for!”
