site.btaMedia Review: December 4

HEADLINES

No single story dominates the front pages of print dailies on Monday. The morning programmes of the Bulgarian National Television (BNT), bTV, Nova TV, and the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) all featured political discussions. 

The top story on the front page of Trud is about people’s preparations for the upcoming St. Nicholas Day. The headline reads that the traditionally cooked carp has become “golden”, thus very expensive. The top story in Telegraph is on Bulgaria’s motorways under construction, the daily writes that 32 kilometres of “autobahn” will be put in operation in 2024. Duma’s main story is political comments, highlighting recent statements by Bulgarian Socialist Party leader Korneliya Ninova criticizing the government. The front page of 24 Chasa highlights property price increase in Bulgaria.

POLITICS 

On the morning show of BNT, former vice prime minister and economy minister Nikolay Vasilev criticized Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov over his assessment that Bulgaria’s 2024 State Budget is “balanced”. He also said that if Bulgaria does not enter the euro zone it will be because of Finance Minister Assen Vassilev and his policy. 

Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) MP Ivaylo Mirchev commented on the morning show of bTV on the constitutional amendments debated in parliament. He reiterated the much-needed support for the amendments proposed by his party and the key role of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms for having a majority. "With the regulators, there must be a clear mechanism to prevent what happened with the NHIF from happening again. There has to be a selection of these people. So far, the parties have put forward different candidates. Sometimes it turns out that the least disliked candidate is chosen. There must be clear criteria. There are no regulators at the moment. That was one of the requests we went into the elections with,” he said. According to him, all parliamentary forces should have representatives in the management of the regulatory bodies.

The morning show of BNT hosted a discussion on the political situation in Bulgaria. Stoycho Stoychev, Slavi Vasilev, and Veselin Stoynev commented on the stability of the ruling coalition and the role of the opposition. According to Stoynev, ambiguity and lack of regulation are more advantageous for such a "non-coalition" because all parties in it will be able to declare their distance from it at all times. A coalition agreement would not provide for a coalition, but a regulation for staff appointments. Such a text will now be binding on the regulators, because it is not only the coalition government that is concerned, but also the greater Euro-Atlantic majority. Vasilev said it was normal among the "irreconcilable enemies" who govern Bulgaria to have scandals like those about the regulators. According to him, backroom deals and ambiguity are the political agenda. "It is not surprising that they got along, nor was it surprising that there was a scandal," he said. More interesting is why the National Health Insurance Fund caused a problem. Stoychev is of the opinion that the rotation should happen with the resignation of the current cabinet of Nikolay Denkov. When the new cabinet is proposed, it may have a different structure, composition and it is possible that one majority will vote for the resignation of the old cabinet and another for the new cabinet. This is because our constitution does not provide for such a government.

Political scientist Teodor Slavev told BNR that currently 16 regulators are with expired mandates, and that the number of people to be elected is close to 80. He referenced a survey by the Bulgarian Institute for Legal Initiatives (BILI), according to which 67.6% of Bulgarians fully support raising standards in the selection of independent regulators. People feel that there is a problem in the selection of regulators, and every activity in people's lives depends on these regulators, Slavev stressed. That is why the procedure for selecting their management should be transparent and competitive, he insisted. The survey also showed that most of the people are not informed about the constitutional changes. Slavev also commented on the role of the MRF I n parliament. "Parliament has no mechanism to vet candidates. They do them in meetings at party headquarters, etc., which is not the standard practice", Slavev said. According to him, the smallest partner in the coalition, the MRF, are the most favoured because "with providing the least parliamentary support they achieve the most". For the election of some of the regulators, a qualified majority of 2/3 is required, such as the Supreme Judicial Council, for example, Slavev pointed out. 

On the front page of Trud is a story about the political party GERB’s 17th anniversary, celebrated in Sliven. The daily quotes GERB leader Boyko Borissov saying that the ruling coalition is “made up of cheap materials, barely holds, but still works”.  

ECONOMY 

Trud has an interview with economist Yosif Avramov, who is quoted on the daily’s front page as saying that higher revenues will come about with higher inflation. “The withdrawal of the dividend from state-owned enterprises leads to their total decapitalisation and future lack of investment in them,” he also said. 

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24 Chasa writes on its front page that rental prices for stores on Vitosha Boulevard in Sofia have gone up by 4%. The street has a fully pedestrian section between the National Palace of Culture and the Sofia Court House. The highlight of the story is a property with seven potential buyers but an “impossibly” high price.

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Trud’s top story on fish prices for St. Nicholas Day highlights that the price of carp has gone up three-fold. The reason for that is that stores are offering extra services such as cleaning the fish of bones and scales, preparing for cooking, or even selling it already cooked. According to sellers, interviewed by Trud, many buyers are opting for smaller portions and deviating from the holiday tradition of cooking a whole fish.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

MEP Ilhan Kyuchyuk spoke in a video call on the morning programme of Nova TV to reiterate his intentions to take part in a demonstration in front of the Interior Ministry in Vienna, together with Romanian MEP Vlad Botos and Austrian Helmut Brandstatter, protesting Austria’s decision not to allow Bulgaria and Romania in Schengen. Kyuchyuk said that the demonstration aims to show the common desire for full integration, unity, and the removal of discriminatory barriers. 

HOME AFFAIRS 

Sociologist Aleksey Pamporov told BNR that the demographic crisis observed in Bulgaria during the Videnov cabinet (1995-1997) is bound to happen again if the state keeps neglecting young families. According to him, the crisis at the moment is not demographic but of human resources. Pamporov said that the fertility rate in Bulgaria in 2022 was 1.78 - one of the highest in a long time. “Women in Bulgaria are now giving their all, but there are simply very few of them,” he said. “The problem is not that young people go to study in the West, but that they do not come back. The trend for Bulgarians to study in the West was already common during the Ottoman rule. People who graduated in Vienna and Prague then returned here." Pamporov highlighted that the state currently lacks adequate policies in support of young mothers and fathers. He gave as an example that Bulgarian universities do not have daycare or other facilities that would encourage parenthood. 

HEALTHCARE 

Telegraph has an interview with Kostadin Angelov, chair of the parliamentary committee on healthcare, who says that Bulgarians pay 30% to 40% of healthcare costs when, according to him, the state can cover more than that. He says that it can happen not by increasing health insurance fees but by allocating more money in the sector. Angelov is also of the opinion that all medicinal drugs for COVID-19 should be covered by the National Health Insurance Fund.