site.btaMedia Review: March 18

ECONOMY

Trud runs an analysis by financier Dimitar Chobanov who forecasts that the budgeted GDP for 2023 will fall short of reality. The 2023 GDP is the basis for the 2024 forecasts. A significant error for 2023 would lead to an even larger discrepancy for 2024 and put the current year's revenue performance at risk. This could lead to a higher deficit exceeding 3% of GDP and trigger the excessive deficit procedure. This procedure makes it impossible for Bulgaria to join the euro area.

The GDP forecast for 2023, which is used to draw up the 2024 budget, is BGN 191.2 billion. According to NSI data, the GDP for 2023 is 183.7 billion - i.e. the deviation is almost 7.5 billion. This is a very large discrepancy, which is the result of the unrealistic GDP forecast that was made for the 2023 budget deficit. The aim of this forecast was for the expected deficit in 2023 to be lower than 3% of GDP. When the figures for the budget deficit on a cash basis for 2023 of BGN 5.6 billion were published, Chobanov warned that it would exceed the 3% limit and breach the fiscal rules. The NSI data confirmed it - the deficit of BGN 5.6 billion corresponds to 3.1% of GDP in breach of the Public Finance Act.

This large discrepancy also hampers the development of the Convergence Programme, which must be sent to the European Commission by mid-April. The programme must use the published GDP as the basis for the forecasts and explain the reasons why it differs by almost EUR 7.5 billion from the budget. In addition, the programme must make a new forecast for GDP in 2024 and for key indicators such as relative GDP shares, according to the analyst.

POLITICS

At noon on Monday, President Radev will hand over the first exploratory mandate for the formation of a GERB-UDF cabinet after holding political consultations with the six formations in the 49th National Assembly.

Mariya Gabriel, GERB-UDF’s prime minister designate, will receive the folder from the head of State.

Monday’s media are flooded with speculations about whether or not GERB-UDF will return to President Rumen Radev an unfulfilled mandate after they failed to reach an agreement with Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB). There is no single explanation why the two formations remain at odds after an entire weekend of negotiations.

On Sunday night GERB said the country was heading for early elections because CC-DB did not accept their proposals. CC-DB's version is that they agreed to the ministerial posts GERB wanted, but their non-coalition partners refused to sign the agreement.

TECHNOLOGY

The European Parliament adopted a law on artificial intelligence, which introduces comprehensive regulation of this technology. It is the world's first such large-scale framework of rules.

"The bill is about to be approved by the EU Council, which I hope will happen soon, because we see the pressing need for these rules," Gabriela Rumenova of the “Nie Potrebitelite” (“We the Consumers”) platform told BNT.

There will necessarily be systems that will be banned because they will be defined as high-risk, she noted.

"For example, toys that have voice functions and can provoke dangerous behaviour in children - this will be unacceptable. There will be systems identified as high risk - smart homes, systems related to driving vehicles - planes, subways, cars. They will be required to pass certain tests before they are put into operation and throughout their lifetime. These are measures to ensure safety," Rumenova explained.

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Dnevnik writes that since the beginning of March, Bulgaria has appeared on the map of artificial intelligence as a country that not only uses this technology, but also develops it. INSAIT presented the first Bulgarian language model BgGPT, one of the AI models the institute is working on.

BgGPT is not just a chatbot in Bulgarian. The goal of the open language model is to be used by public or private organizations to perform certain tasks after being trained internally by them. It can relatively quickly and easily moderate content, filter selected items from a database, or serve as the basis for creating another business chatbot: services that companies would otherwise seek out and pay external developers for.

RESCUED SAILORS

After more than three months in captivity, the crew of the ship Ruen, with Bulgarian command staff, has been set free, 24 Chasa reports.

The release operation was conducted by two Indian Navy ships that intercepted the hijacked Ruen and demanded the Somali pirates surrender. The operation lasted for more than 40 hours, 2,600 km off the coast of India.

Executive Director of "Shipping Bulgarian Navy" - JSC, the ship's owner company, Captain Alexander Kalchev said the entire crew is in good health. The ship should be directed to a safe harbour where investigations, including into this act of piracy, will be carried out and statements will be taken to see what damage has been done to it during these three months. The crew should then be replaced and the ship should continue on its way, Kalchev said, adding that the rescued sailors should return to Bulgaria within a couple of weeks.

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The sailors from the ship Ruen with ten guards are on their way to Oman, where the Interpol investigation will continue. Then they will leave for India by naval ship, where they will complete the last investigative actions and the Bulgarian citizens should return to Bulgaria successfully in about 15 days, bTV learned from Tanya Dimitrova, Director of the Situation Centre at the Foreign Ministry.