Business

First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior Ivica Dacic stated today that combating organised crime and corruption is one of the state’s priorities.

Speaking at a roundtable discussion regarding the first year of the implementation of the Law on the confiscation of property obtained through crime, Dacic stressed that international cooperation and good cooperation among Serbian organs are the basic precondition for a successful fight against organised crime.

Bulgaria's right-wing Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB) party had initiated a probe of the State-run energy companies, the party leadership informs Tuesday.

DSB have appraised last Friday the Interior Minister, Tsvetan Tsvetanov, of evidence for large-scale violations at the Thermal Power Plant (TPP) Maritsa – Iztok 2 and the Maritsa Iztok mines, committed between 2004 and 2007.

On Monday, the file has been submitted with the State Agency for National Security (DANS) and Chief Prosecutor, Boris Velchev. Velchev had ordered the Sofia City Prosecutor's Office to take over the probe to avoid conflict of local interests if the Prosecutor's Office in the city of Stara Zagora does the investigation.

Bulgaria registered the greatest labor and non-wage costs growth in the EU in 2009, according to data of Germany's Federal Statistical Office (Destatis).

In spite of that, however, the country remains the EU member state with the lowest labor costs in the 27-nation bloc.

The ranking of the Federal Statistical Office features two main components of labour costs: gross wages and salaries and non-wage costs. Employers’ social contributions, that is above all the statutory social security contributions payable by employers and the expenditure for company old-age pension schemes, constitute the main component of non-wage costs.