The Association of Restaurants in Bulgaria and the Bulgarian Association of Establishments expressed their position on the recent events in the country and in particular – the National Plan for the COVID-19 Response, which was presented yesterday by the Ministry of Health.
The Association of Restaurants in Bulgaria and the Bulgarian Association of Establishments drew attention to the fact that in the ensuing third wave of the virus, the first victims will again be the establishments, as the night ones practically do not get any chance to survive.
„For us, the ongoing fixation on small and medium-sized businesses is inexplicable and irregular. Ours and many related industries will not survive a new closure. This is the simple economic logic of the business, which has suffered a series of blows in the last year and a half and continues to bear the brunt of the crisis.“, the industry wrote.
They strongly oppose a new closure and discriminatory treatment of the sector „and we do not even open the bracket that there is no talk of possible compensation that would affect all those affected by it. In view of the fact that we are already talking about the actual survival of businesses and employees, the compensation must be 100%! We believe that the state budget will not have to be subjected to this…“
Dissatisfied business representatives are of the opinion that „it was done again without taking into account the expert opinion of those affected. That is why we urge branch organizations to participate with experts in the development of such documents. Because at the moment, the criteria of who closes when, to what extent it closes, for what reason it closes and why it is important for it to close, are completely unclear and contradictory. We know that there will be a new wave of COVID-19, because this is the normal development of any virus. But this does not mean that we will agree again to be scapegoats for the imitation of „measures“.
Here is the full text of the position of the Association of Restaurants in Bulgaria and the Bulgarian Association of Establishments without editing:
„On April 28, when the nightclubs opened in Bulgaria (the first in all of Europe), we had 2,000 new cases a day! Today, July 9, 10 weeks later, we have less than 100 cases a day in all night and day restaurants. This clearly shows that working establishments in Bulgaria do not increase the incidence in any way. On the contrary, it has limited unregulated gatherings, and in the last 10 weeks it has fallen more than 20 times. This is a fact!
There are currently a sufficient number of vaccines of all types in Bulgaria and we urge that the necessary steps be taken to use them for their intended purpose, and not to penalize businesses. Everyone has access to them and is free to choose whether to be vaccinated and with which vaccine to do so. At this point, we can in no way assume that we will again be destined for scapegoats in the imitation of „measures“!
Since there is already a vaccine against C19, every Bulgarian citizen bears the responsibility for his own health! It is not normal to doom again to bankruptcy, misery and famine over 300,000 young and hardworking Bulgarians directly employed in our industry and another 200,000 in related businesses to protect those who do not want to be vaccinated, do not consider the virus to be infected. for dangerous or have decided that they themselves will bear the risk of infection!
When everyone is free to be vaccinated and protected from C19, closing hundreds of thousands of jobs is not only unnecessary, but also harmful and discriminatory!
The Association of Restaurants in Bulgaria and the Bulgarian Association of Establishments do not accept any form of closure from now on to mimic fighting a virus, given that there is a vaccine available and free to all.
And finally – we insist that there will be no more business closures and a clear strategy to deal with the low interest in vaccination!
We expect the authorities (whoever they are) to say clearly:
„Nothing will ever be closed again because of a virus for which there is a FREE vaccine!“
Everyone should be responsible for their own health, not the burden of the personal decisions of a group of people to transfer to business! If in 2019-2020 the pandemic was a public problem, then this year it is already a personal decision and responsibility.
Talk about how you will achieve mass vaccination and collective immunity, not how you will close businesses!“
