site.btaMedia Review: March 28

POLITICS

The topic of a possible caretaker government and snap parliamentary elections dominate Thursday’s news media. Various experts comment on whether Bulgaria might find itself in a constitutional crisis in this scenario in light of the recent amendments to the Constitution.

On Bulgarian National Radio, Assoc Prof Hristo Hristev, lawyer and lecturer at the St Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia, commented that it is hard to say whether or not Bulgaria finds itself in a constitutional crisis. “There is a broad circle of potential candidates for caretaker prime minister. The problem will come if all of them refuse. The amended Constitution does not say what happens then,” Hristev said. In his words, the constitutional amendments are to some extent thoughtless, though there was a need to change the procedure for caretaker governments due to how they were used in the last two years, causing reasonable concerns that the parliamentary republic model was being changed. In addition to the constitutional changes, the judicial reform requires a new Judiciary Act, he argued.

On Bulgarian National Television (BNT), constitutional judge Yanaki Stoilov commented that there is always a possibility for all possible candidates for caretaker prime minister to turn down the post, but that will hardly happen. “Unlike the appointment of ambassadors where the government and the President share competence and either side can reject the proposed candidate, here [the appointment of caretaker prime minister] the President can choose one person but afterwards, when said candidate for prime minister hands him a government lineup proposal, the head of State has to sign it and table it [in Parliament],” Stoilov explained. “I cannot say how he would act. Many questions arise, and I do not wish to go into detail,” he added. He said he is disconcerted by how lightly the politicians treat the entire process, when it concerns the form of state governance. “Those who supported the changes in the Constitution are beginning to distance themselves from the changes. People who should adhere strictly to the Constitution apply it when it is not getting in their way,” Stoilov commented. 

On bTV’s morning show, former justice minister and former constitutional judge Pencho Penev commented that a constitutional crisis is possible. Such a risk lies in two directions:  the first is related to the possible nominees for caretaker prime minister (there is no legal mechanism obliging a person to accept the post); the second direction is related to the interpretation of the Constitution’s new Article 99 (it is ambiguous in who should bear the political responsibility for the caretaker government). According to Penev, the President should bear the political responsibility but to that end, he should be part of the cabinet’s formation, which should be coordinated with him. The other possible interpretation of Article 99 is that the President is just a registrator who tables in Parliament the cabinet lineup presented by the prime minister-designate, but in that case why should the head of State bear responsibility? Penev described as unconstitutional Article 99 (7) of the Constitution whereby Parliament can limit by law the caretaker government’s activity. A decision by the Constitutional Court of 1992 on the caretaker government’s powers reads that the Executive’s powers cannot be limited by the Legistlature by law, only by a Grand National Assembly through the Constitution.

On Nova TV’s morning show, constitutional law expert and lecturer Orlin Kolev said that there is no risk of a constitutional crisis, because the outgoing government is to remain in power until a new regular or caretaker cabinet is appointed. There is no scenario where Bulgaria remains without a government. According to Kolev, there will surely be general elections but there might not be a caretaker government. All candidates for caretaker prime minister as listed in the amended Constitution face the risk of incompatibility, with the exception of the National Assembly Chair, Kolev explained.

BNT approached for a comment on the current political situation journalists Valeriya Veleva and Emilia Milcheva. According to Milcheva, GERB-UDF and Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) should have agreed on  a mechanism for appointments in their coalition when the government was being formed last year; that would have prevented the current drama. Having a coalition culture is one of the most important things, she argued; GERB’s coalition culture is based on the “come, I will eat you”  principle, and that of CC-DB is to first agree on a coalition culture within the formation, which is not easy given there are five or six member parties in it. According to Veleva, the failure of the cabinet formation negotiations was not purposeful, because it is evident that snap elections are not the best option at the moment either for the country or the political forces themselves. 

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Duma quotes Socialist MP Rumen Gechev as saying that BSP for Bulgaria is firmly in favour of snap elections. The BSP has always demanded the resignation of the assemblage government, because it is pushing Bulgaria towards serious economic, social, and political problems. “We are confident that our [election] result will be better because the BSP as the only real opposition party in Parliament has been strictly following the policy it declared before the elections,” he said. The BSP fulfilling its commitments will be appreciated both by the party’s supporters and those dissatisfied with Continue the Change and GERB. In his words, who the BSP will hold cabinet formation talks with after the snap elections depends on the composition of the next National Assembly and whether the other formations share the BSP’s policies in defence of the national interest.

ECONOMY

24 Chasa has an interview with European Commissioner for Cohesion and Reforms Elisa Ferreira within several pages dedicated to “Europe for Bulgaria”. She advises Bulgaria to develop its regions, because Sofia generates 50% of the country’s GDP when only 18% of the population lives there.

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Telegraf has an interview with former finance minister Simeon Dyankov, who talks about the state budget. According to him, taxes will inevitably be raised.

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Trud’s front-page article quotes Eurostat data that the hourly pay for work is EUR 9.30 in Bulgaria, compared to EUR 41 in Germany.  Most Member States are ahead of Bulgaria in this respect; Romania is the closest with EUR 11. 

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Capital.bg presents data of the Bulgarian National Bank and the National Statistical Institute showing that from 2013 to 2023, Bulgaria’s export doubled, and in 20 years it grew nearly seven-fold. The fastest-growing group of exported goods is that of investment goods (mostly machines and parts); their value has grown three-fold in a decade and thirteen-fold in 20 years. This is good news because this group of goods has high value added for the economy. However, the biggest share in Bulgarian export still belongs to raw materials, 39.51% in 2023 and 43.51% in 2013. The share of energy resources in the total export was 9.56% last year compared to 15.22% in 2013.  

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Segabg.com has an article about the effect of the political crisis in the last two years on public procurement in Bulgaria. While before the main problem was corruption and incompetence, now there is incapability to even launch the procedures, resulting in the failure of contracts worth billions and the blockage of entire sectors. The state of the roads and railways are a good example of how people’s security is thus put at risk. Sega gives examples of absurd cases at the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, where in 2023 old public procurement procedures of the caretaker government were annulled, then the new procedures of the new power holders were annulled, and then part of the annulment decisions were annulled. Also, there are a pile of legal cases launched that contest public procurement procedures for road maintenance launched by the Road Infrastructure Agency in 2023. At the Electronic Governance Ministry, the procedures launched by the outgoing minister are going nowhere, when the deadlines are approaching and hundreds of millions of BGN under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan are at risk. At the Ministry of Transport and Communications, three procurement procedures launched by the caretaker government got terminated, but those opened in their places by the outgoing cabinet are progressing tragically, Sega writes.

HOME AFFAIRS

24 Chasa’s front-page story presents changes to the ordinance on road traffic organization. One of the revisions envisages the placement of a traffic light for a left turn at crossroads after three traffic accidents there within a single year. The countdown timers showing how many minutes are left of the red and green lights are reintroduced. In a related interview, Petya Ivanova and Ninella Varbanova, founders of the Road Angels association that unites parents and relatives of victims of road traffic accidents, comment that 220,000 Bulgarians were injured and 20,000 died in a traffic accident in 20 years. Drivers who have caused death get lighter or conditional sentences, unlike perpetrators of economic crimes. Recently, a driver responsible for the loss of a tooth of another got ten months in prison, while drivers who have killed a child get conditional sentences. One cannot claim that one killed a person on the road “by accident” when one was driving intoxicated at 200 km/h, Ivanova and Varbanova argue. They call for an urgent meeting with representatives of the authorities so they can present how they see the problems with road traffic accidents.

Telegraf has an inside-page article reading that 1,500 driver license candidates have to wait because there are not enough people to conduct their practical driving tests.

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Telegraf writes on its front page about the undermanning of the Bulgarian Army, the rate of which exceeds 20% according to the recently published Report on the State of Defence and the Armed Forces in 2023. The article puts an emphasis on young people's weak interest in working for the Army.

Mediapool.bg reports that there is a real risk of Bulgaria not preparing the Graf Ignatievo Air Base in time for the arrival of the new F-16 Block 70 fighter jets from the Unites States, thus risking having to pay rent for their storage. According to information of the e-zine, an emergency option is being considered where the fighters, which are expected next year, will be initially stored at Bezmer Air Base. The risk stems from the repair works and modernization of the Graf Ignatievo Air Base: there currently is a serious issue with the landing and takeoff runway at Graf Ignatievo. The Defence Ministry has reported a problem with the runway’s drainage, making its use problematic in certain meteorological conditions. Nearly BGN 50 million are needed for the additional repair works. The project appreciates almost daily and, according to the estimates of Mediapool’s independent sources, will cost over BGN 500 million. The initial estimates were for BGN 300 million, but thus far that sum has been exceeded by BGN 100 million. 

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Trud has an interview with historian Stefan Ivanov, who says that during the socialist period in Bulgaria, many brutal crimes were committed but the authorities hid those from citizens. Ivanov’s book about crimes in Bulgaria in the 1944-1989 period, which was published several days ago, busts the myth that exists to this day that live was better back then and there were  no crimes. According to him, those who covered up the real scale of the crimes in that period (theft, rape, murder) now lie that there were no problems and even purposefully spread such lies for various unsavory purposes. Over 90% of the data in the book are made public for the first time, the article reads.