The budget as a political instrument or how the political parties realize their policies through the prism of municipality budgets is what the participants discussed during the National Program in the fourth day of the course, dedicated to the local self-government. The structure and the principals of the council budget and financial policies were presented by Mr. Zdravko Sechkov – Chair of the Foundation for Reform in the Local Self-government. In the small groups the participants had to prepare and vote a budget, as well as to explain the main policies that they are to realize through it.

The afternoon session was devoted to political documents. The lecturer from SU “Kliment Ohridski”, Strahil Deliyski gave fundamental guidelines when it comes to writing political speeches, declarations and statements.   At the end of the day the program director of the Centre for Liberal strategies, Mr. Georgi Ganev, showed the results of the sociological research and content-analysis about the media and its role in the informed choice of the citizens. The research and the analysis were conducted during the parliamentary election campaigns in 2013 and are part of the project “The Role of the Media in the Increase of Civil Participation in Public Life”, carried out by the Bulgarian school of Politics and the centre for Liberal Strategies supported by the Balkan Trust for Democracy.