According to flash data about revenues as of beginning of May 2012, Bulgaria's State budget is balanced for the first time since June 2009.

The information was reported Friday in the Parliament by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, Simeon Djankov.

He stressed that his ruling center-right Citizens for European Development of Bulgaria party, GERB, began its term with a legacy of huge deficit, left by his predecessor in the Cabinet of the Three-Way Coalition, and two years were needed to balance it, but declined elaborating on any further details.

The Finance Minister made the statement in an answer to a question of a Member of the Parliament related to hotel owners having to pay local taxes – something that violates the Constitution as the Constitutional Court ruled in April.

Djankov insisted that all hotel owners must pay the said tax for the period before the rule i.e. up to April 20, 2012. He vowed to ask as early as Friday information from the National Revenue Agency, NRA, about hotel owners who had not paid what they owe, thinking the rule applies to earlier times as well.

The tax for 2011 was due by March 1, 2012.