site.btaMedia Review: January 17

POLITICS - SHADY PROPERTY DEALS 

Dnevnik: The Sofia City Prosecutor's Office is checking a signal from the BOEC civil association against Finance Minister Assen Vassilev, Continue the Change MP Daniel Lorer, bTV said. The supervising prosecutor was of the opinion that based on the availabe informaion, it could not be concluded whether financial crimes had been committed, and therefore an investigation was assigned to the anti-corruption commission. The new unit, which investigates persons holding public office, which was established in September 2023 after the the commission was split into two, has three months to carry out the probe.

The alert from BOEC comes following a publication by BIRD.BG. One transaction was made by a former company of Minister Vassilev, which currently has its accounts seized due to a claim by an American citizen for BGN 5 million. The buyer is Stanislava Arnaudova's company Intelligent Traffic Systems, which became the first intermediary in the sale of vignettes (a fee vehicles are charged to use the national road network). On the same day she, as an individual, bought Daniel Lorer's property at a bargain price.

Commenting on Bird's publication, Daniel Lorer said, "Both the actual purchase of the apartment in the building on my part, which was duly declared at the time, and the sale that was made will be duly declared this year. What I can say is that we (he and his wife) bought the property then, renovated it extensively, lived in it and sold it now with all the furnishings at the top of the property market after inflation at a price that is realistic for the centre of Sofia. To all the speculation as to why the buyer is the one dealing with vignettes, I can say that the only thing I have in common with vignettes is that I buy one every year for my car."

The MP added that Arnaudova was the buyer who offered the best price for the property and therefore he seized the  opportunity to sell it to her. He explained that at the moment, Continue the Change does not have a party headquarters because it has moved out of the premises on 3 Catalca Street 

On Facebook, Vassilev called the investigation a "fabricated story" and supposed that his name was maliciously involved.

Capital gives a thorough breakthrough of the chain of events starting to the low price the properties were acquired to their sale at significantly higher prices to Arnaudova, hinting at the possibility of conflict of interest in the whole deal. 

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Duma: The Executive Bureau of the Bulgarian Socialist Party's (BSP) National Council decided to convene a meeting of the National Council on Saturday, January 20, 2024, at which it will launch the party's preparations for the upcoming elections of members of the European Parliament (EP).

The meeting will review the criteria and procedures for nominating candidates for MEPs, work on the political platform for the upcoming EP elections and start holding meetings and conferences to nominate BSP candidates for the MEP candidate list that will be approved by the BSP National Council in April.

The members of the BSP National Council will discuss the current political situation in the country and will approve the party's general organisational and political plan for 2024.

BULGARIA’S SCHENGEN ACCESSION AND AUSTRIAN BUSINESSES 

Trud: "There is support among employers' organisations to support the boycott of Austrian businesses in this country. All employers' organisations have as their number one priority Bulgaria's full admission to Schengen - the lifting of land border controls by the end of the year and our country's admission to the OECD by 2026," Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association Management Board Chairman Vasil Velev told NOVA TV. 

According to the Bulgarian business representative, Austria's veto against Bulgaria's full Schengen membership should be met with retaliatory measures. "We need to straighten up a bit, we continue to be bent, to behave like second-class people with a slave mentality without self-confidence and dignity," Velev explained.

Former deputy finance minister Stamen Tasev believes such behaviour is counterproductive. The reason is that Austria is the second largest foreign investor in Bulgaria - after the Netherlands and before Germany. "Five billion euro have invested with us. Thirty companies with 70,000 staff work in the fields of electricity distribution, telecommunications, banking, finance, trade, heavy and light industry. Such actions are unlikely to change the response of the official Austrian authorities, but is it possible to cause the opposite effect?" asked Tasev.

In response, Velev said that when a businessman invests, their goal is profit, not a gift to the host country. He explained that it is not the number of foreign investments that is important, but their impact. "If the increase is from retained earnings, this profit has reduced the money in the pockets of our producers and buyers," the employers' representative added.

SOFIA PUBLIC TRANSPORT PROTEST 

Bulgarian National TV (BNT) and Bulgarian National Radio cover the upcoming protest of Sofia public transport workers, which will take place Thursday at 8 a.m. The protest is organised by the Federation of Transport Trade Unions. It will be held in Druzhba district at the last stop of several bus lines.

The traffic along bus lines 4, 88, 204, 304, 384 and N4 will be hampered, and it is possible that they will be stopped.

The Federation of Transport Trade Unions of the Confederation of Indepdendent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) is demanding a 30% wage increase in Sofia's four municipal transport companies. The trade unions warned that the social tension in public transport, which started at the end of last year, is present not only in Sofia, but across the country. 

CITUB demands for an additional BGN 37 million in the State budget for 2024 for salary increases in the sector were not accepted. According to the trade unionis, this will directly prevent the municipalities from satisfying the workers' needs for an increase in their wages. 

The CITUB warned that wages are being eaten up by inflation and outpacing income growth in the private sector. Retired employees are not being replaced by new young recruits because of low starting salaries and lack of prospects. CITUB claims that all this is also leading to the accumulation of large amounts of overtime, which for the year 2023 reaches over 500,000 hours, and this has a direct negative impact on the safety offered by public transport.

CITUB said that the lack of staff - drivers, engineering staff, mechanics, maintenance and cleaning staff - will only lead to overworked employees and risk an increase in accidents and breakdowns in the sector.

Meanwhile, a Tuesday evening bus accident in Sofia received extensive media coverage. The bus hit a female pedestrian after the driver lost control of the vehicle. Dnevnik reported that the woman was hospitalized in critical condition and had to have her leg amputated. 

BNT quotes Sofia Municipal Councilor and trade union leader Vanya Grigorova as attributing the accident to bus drivers being overworked. 

RUSSIAN KAMCHIA COMPLEX ON BULGARIAN BLACK SEA COAST

Dnevnik: "None of the members of the Board of Directors of the Russian Kamchia Sanatorium and Health Complex (SOK Kamchia) in the resort of the same name is on the European Union sanctions lists, and this is a serious challenge to the jurisprudence in view of our intentions for possible future confiscation of the complex in favor of the Bulgarian State," Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria MP Ivaylo Mirchev said.

Last year, he announced that the base would soon be Bulgarian, because MPs are preparing a bill to implement international sanctions against Russia in Bulgaria. 

"We are already at the final stages of drafting a law on the implementation of international sanctions," Mirchev said. But another serious obstacle is that the Kamchia complex is owned by the Moscow government, not the Russian State.

"At the moment, we cannot freeze the company's assets if its owners or members of its governing bodies are not sanctioned persons," the MP explained. 

Mirchev was approached for comment in connection with information that the property department of the city of Moscow had sent to the board of directors of the Russian complex a directive requesting that the current director of personnel management of Lukoil Neftohim Burgas AD, Rossen Grigorov, be appointed as the executive director of the complex. He confirmed his appointment to Dnevnik, which has not yet been reflected in the Commercial Register.

The replacement of the CEO of SOK Kamchia can be seen as an indirect confirmation of predictions that Russia will attempt to formally divest itself of ownership of the Kamchia resort in order to pre-empt the law on the implementation of international sanctions being drafted in the Bulgarian Parliament and to thwart attempts by the Bulgarian State to regain ownership of the complex. 

ECONOMY 

Capital: After the global economic and social shock caused by the pandemic and geopolitical tensions in recent years, in 2022 inflation reached levels not seen in a while. In 2023, this inflationary growth slowed its pace but continued to have a significant impact on the global economy and trade. For the second year in a row, Bulgaria has adapted to this context, with the country's fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) market reporting double-digit growth in value, driven entirely by increases in cash prices.

Thus, although sales in volume have continued their stagnation for the second consecutive year, over the last 12 months (up to and including September 2023) the Bulgarian FMCG market has grown by 14.4% in value to reach BGN 12.9 billion. It is important to note that this growth builds on the 11.6% already reported in 2022.