Conference Examines Minimum Wage Rules and Living Costs

Minimum wage levels and how they are set were the focus of Tuesday’s international conference Bargaining-Up: Together for a Fair Deal for Workers.
Participants discussed why living costs should be taken into account and how the EU Directive on Adequate Minimum Wages could be implemented across member states.
The event was organized by the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).
Minister of Labour and Social Policy Nataliya Efremova outlined recent Labour Code amendments introducing a new minimum wage-setting mechanism. The changes sought to avoid an automatic formula that would limit the role of social dialogue, she said. The new system would also take living costs into account, with a methodology still to be developed, she added.
Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) President Plamen Dimitrov said employers and unions had pursued different objectives during negotiations on the new mechanism. Employers had sought to constrain the process to produce the smallest possible minimum wage increase, he said.
Dimitrov said one of the main disputes concerned how to assess wage adequacy against living costs, as Bulgaria had no official methodology for calculating them. “We have a methodology for the small consumer basket, but there is no specific methodology for the cost of living. This was one of the key battles for us,” he said.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) had developed such a methodology in 2021 and updated it in 2025, but member states were not using it, he said. CITUB conducted its own cost-of-living studies, he added.
Dimitrov said Bulgaria’s EUR 620 minimum wage was below the cost-of-living threshold. CITUB estimated that a single working person needed a net monthly income of EUR 828. The 2027 minimum wage should reach the upper end of the range discussed by the social partners, he said. CITUB would also insist on restoring the cost of living as the primary criterion and indicator for wage-setting.
The other indicators were more conventional, including changes in gross wages, the median wage, the average gross wage and long-term national productivity over a 10-year period, he said.
Podkrepa Confederation of Labour Chief Economist Atanas Katsarchev described Bulgaria’s minimum wage as the lowest in Europe and the Balkans, saying it would remain so even under the government’s current proposal. He argued that prices were rising while wages stagnated and inequality was deepening across Europe, including Bulgaria. He also discussed Bulgaria’s tax system and its impact on the budget.
ETUC Confederal Secretary Tea Jarc said the directive aimed to reduce in-work poverty and ensure decent pay. Another objective was to narrow the wide gaps between EU member states, such as Bulgaria and Luxembourg, by bringing minimum wages closer together at higher levels, she said. She called for wage-setting methods to be reviewed to reflect changing conditions and cited Slovenia as a positive example, saying its minimum wage was updated frequently.
The ILO’s Khalid Maman Waziri said a living wage should provide a decent standard of living through earnings from normal working hours. Since baskets of goods and services varied between countries, they should include a component ensuring that standard, he added.
Participants also presented their countries’ models for setting minimum wages.

Conference Examines Minimum Wage Rules and Living Costs THE NEWS FROM BULGARIA – NEWS AGENCY 2009-2025 2026-10-20 10:54:31

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