How the budget simulator works: data and model — How /budget/simulator works: where the data comes from and how the model is built. Static and dynamic mode, how every lever is scored (VAT, income tax, corporate, dividends, the social-security cap, excise, spending), the behavioral elasticities and fiscal multipliers behind dynamic mode, the limitations and the validation against official costings.
The BNB reserve after the euro: can it be spent? — A recurring promise: with the euro, Bulgaria "frees up" 20–40 billion leva of reserves it can finally spend. We trace the claim to source — how big the BNB reserve actually is (≈€42bn), what happened to it on 1 January 2026 (a ≈€1.48bn transfer to the ECB in exchange for a non-redeemable claim — an accounting swap, not a release), and why EU law (Art 123 TFEU) and basic accounting mean neither the state nor anyone else gets cash to spend.
Local councils and capital programmes — what we ingest and what's missing — An audit of all 16 municipalities with council-votes data and 26 with capital-programme data on electionsbg.com. Data tables, gaps grouped by issue (publication policy, Cloudflare/TSPD bot guards, scanned PDFs, stale CMSes), and the eight oblast capitals where readers can ask their councils to publish what their bigger peers already do.
Twenty years of Bulgarian cabinets — what the numbers actually show — Analysis of all 18 cabinets since 2005 through their macro footprints — GDP, inflation, unemployment, debt and EU funds. What worked and what didn't for each mandate, who left the bill for the next, and why the last 4 years are a paradox: the most unstable politics on top of the strongest economy since EU accession.
A budget scorecard for Bulgaria — five risks, five opportunities — A structured read of Bulgaria's state budget, pinned to specific tiles on the /budget dashboard. Analysis of the new proposal to raise the maximum insurable income to €2,300, plan-versus-actual ministry deviations, the social-functions concentration of spending, and the post-euro fiscal headroom.
A governance scorecard for Bulgaria — seven risks, six opportunities — A structured read of Bulgarian governance, pinned to specific tiles on the /governance dashboard. What the data says about cabinet stability, institutional trust, WGI scores, debt and budget — and where on the dashboard to check live values.