Bulgaria's labour ministry wants to change the law against discrimination to help close the gender pay gap. Deputy labour minister Nadya Klisurska presented the bill to parliament's human rights, religious denominations and citizens' complaints committee, which is leading work on the draft.

Under the new rules, employers will have to be open about pay, track pay gaps and follow the law. They bring Bulgaria in line with EU directive 2023/970, which covers employers, workers and job applicants in both the public and private sectors, including civil servants.

Bulgaria had until June 7, 2026 to put the directive into Bulgarian law. If it misses that deadline, the EU could open a case against the country and fine it, Klisurska said.

Figures for 2024 put Bulgaria's gender pay gap at about 12%, above the EU average of 11.1%. A 2025 European Parliament assessment found that cutting the gap by one percentage point adds roughly 0.1% to economic growth.

Klisurska said the gap has narrowed over the years, but slowly and unevenly. She blamed structural and legal causes: pay is not open, employers do not have to track and report gaps, and workers have few legal options to fight back.

"Unequal pay is bad for the economy and wrong for society," the deputy minister said. She added that it also goes against the EU's principles of equal treatment, equal opportunity, equal pay and equality between women and men. The directive aims to enforce equal pay for equal work, or work of equal value, more strictly through open pay rules and tighter checks.

Women face a much higher risk of poverty, especially in old age, Klisurska said. She blamed this on lower wages, more career breaks and fewer women in senior, better-paid jobs.

Updated (01.10, 21:14): MPs on the human rights committee backed the bill at first reading, with every member voting in favour. Elka Bozhova, who heads the commission for protection against discrimination, said her commission supports the EU directive behind the bill but not the bill itself, since it would make the anti-discrimination law almost impossible to enforce. The commission also warned that the data the bill wants collected would clash with GDPR rules on sensitive personal data.