Ombudsman Velislava Delcheva presented her 2025 annual report to the parliamentary committee on labour, demographic and social policy. Pensions are among the main subjects of complaints, and unemployment benefits are second. The committee approved the report with 17 votes in favour and 1 against.

Both last year and this year, people want minimum pensions to reach the poverty line, Delcheva said. Unemployment benefits are again unchanged this year.

People with disabilities most often turn to the ombudsman over violated social rights, and Delcheva said the problem is systemic. Last year there were about 800 complaints, 288 of them about the procedure of the TELK, the medical expert commission. This year complaints about the TELK have already reached 302. Complaints about the lack of accessible environment number 56, up from 36 last year.

While a TELK decision is under appeal, people go without a pension for eight to 12 months and, Delcheva said, often fall into destitution. She also pointed to a conflict between two laws. Under the Health Act, people with a TELK decision can receive their full pension during the appeal. The Social Security Code says benefits are stopped when the decision is challenged by the medical control of the National Social Security Institute.

On the one hand, there is a lot of abuse of TELK decisions, said committee chair Venko Sabrutev, but a sick person should not pay because a healthy one cheats the system.

The ombudsman said children with disabilities face built-in discrimination. Benefits for disabled adults are tied to the poverty line, which rises every year, while benefits for children are set in the budget year by year and in some cases are not updated at all. Delcheva believes support for children should also be updated every year.

At the meeting, MPs asked about violence among children and by adults against children, as well as about juvenile justice. Delcheva answered that there are two shortcomings: the ombudsman is still not seen as an institution where victims of violence can turn, and children do not recognise it as a place to go. For that reason, she visits schools and works with non-governmental organisations. On juvenile justice, she said, reform is needed because the legislation is outdated.

Asked about debt collectors and quick-loan companies, Delcheva said people report that debts are passed to another creditor without notice and that they are chased for debts that have expired under the statute of limitations. She said borrowers and their relatives face constant calls and visits at home and at work, while the debt grows with no explanation.

Young people are in debt too. According to Delcheva, 18-year-olds with no job rush to take their first loan for an iPhone, fall into a spiral with no way out and damage relations with their families.

Before the euro was introduced on 1 January 2026, 40 people at a time came to the ombudsman's offices asking what would happen after that date.