hed a new minimum wage and new subsidy levels for all social welfare programs. Anyone who had received the old monthly minimum wage of 165 leva would now be compensated 270 leva to provide for a new minimum wage of 435 leva. This minimum wage was subsequently changed three times in 1991, peaking at 518 leva. The 1991 program also gave 242 leva to pregnant or nursing women and to those on temporary workers' disability. Child-care compensation for households with children under three years of age was raised to 90 leva, with a monthly supplement of 100 leva per child. In 1991 several cost-of-living increases were added to those categories as well. In 1991 unemployment compensation was set at 270 leva per month; students over eighteen received 130 leva per month; graduate students, 230 leva. Those payments were funded from the state budget and from enterprise salary budgets, neither of which seemed adequate to keep pace with rapidly changing prices in 1991. Under socialism all citizens who had been awarded the title "active fighter against fascism and capitalism" for military or civilian contributions in World War II received a large pension and special privileges such as free public transportation, free medical prescriptions, and free vacations at special resorts. After much controversy, those privileges were abolished in 1990. Legal System In BulgariaGuided by the striving for transition to a market economy and encouragement of foreign investments the Bulgarian Parliament passed a series of laws: Law on Commerce, Law on Foreign Investments, Law on Banks, Law on Insurance, Law on Corporate Taxation, Value Added Tax Law, Law on Excise Duties, Income Tax Law; Concessions Law; Law on Transformation and Privatization of State-Owned and Municipal Enterprises, Law on Protection of Competition, Law on Cooperatives, Law on International Commercial Arbitration, Equal rights and position of the Bulgarian and the foreign subjects. ...
