site.btaMedia Review: April 8

MILITARY

Bulgaria's military assistance to Ukraine is discussed in an analysis published on SegaBG.com. The author Alexander Alexandrov draws attention to mocking remarks made by GERB party leader Boyko Borissov and Movement for Rights and Freedoms leader Delyan Peevski, who have apparently tried to belittle the importance of the executive government's part in the effort. For instance, Borissov has referred to "woollen five-finger gloves" which will "hopefully" be delivered to Ukraine by "July or August", of all times. The analyst sees these statements as expressions of Borissov's and Peevski's envy of Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov and Defence Minister Todor Tagarev. The former pair argue that the credit for the Bulgarian aid to Ukraine should go to the MPs who voted to approve it in the National Assembly.

As a matter of fact, Bulgaria is "the hidden bomb" in the international aid (military or other) to Ukraine, the analyst argues. Over the last couple of years, Kyiv has constantly praised Sofia for the support. There is no trace left of earlier reproaches by Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and ex-ambassador to Bulgaria Vitaly Moskalenko, who complained that Bulgaria refused to supply air defence systems, fighter aircraft and tanks. A few days ago it transpired not just that Sofia was giving many more things than publicly known, but also that Kyiv had begun to decline some of the offers such as Mi-24 combat helicopters.

Even information from public sources shows that Bulgaria is obviously providing much more than officially declared. Photos taken in the Sofia suburb of Novi Iskar recently revealed that, in addition to the much discussed one hundred BTR armoured personnel vehicles from the Interior Ministry services, the country is sending Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers, which have been kept at military storage facilities and are in very good order. Photos have also captured BRDM-2 amphibious armoured scout cars, visibly in poorer condition, which, too, are beyond the BTR package. The analyst further notes that until recently Wikipedia put the number of S-300 missile systems in Bulgaria at 10, and now it says the country has six of them.

Germany has ordered 120,000 artillery shells from Bulgaria, which will be supplied to Ukraine in 2024. Bulgaria is a major supplier of 122 mm shells internationally, the analysis says. In January 2023, the German newspaper Die Welt ran an extensive article in which the then Bulgarian prime minister Kiril Petkov said his government was secretly helping Ukraine with arms and fuel. SegaBG.com concludes that Bulgaria may be one of the countries which have helped Ukraine most.

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The government plans to invest BGN 13 million in the Avionams aircraft repair plant so that it can provide maintenance for the F-16 Block 70 fighter jets which Bulgaria has purchased from the United States and the Lockheed Martin Corporation, MediaPool.bg reports. The Defence Ministry has reservations about the decision, which, according to the website, shows yet again the lack of coordination among the government departments to be involved in industrial cooperation related to the F-16 deal. This transpired from the verbatim record of last week's government meeting.

Outgoing Defence Minister Todor Tagarev is opposed to investing public money, arguing that the government may find itself paying twice for the same thing. He also has doubts about the prices which state-owned Avionams will set for the F-16s' maintenance, the website notes.

ECONOMY

Bulgaria is growing richer, according to Eurostat data, which should be trusted, although the statement may sound too far-fetched, 24 Chasa says in its main story. Latest numbers published by the statistical office of the European Commission show that Bulgaria's GDP per capita, based on purchasing power parity, reached 64% of the average level in the EU in 2023. The daily notes that this indicator measures the standard of living while taking account of price differences between the countries. Bulgaria has seen steady improvement in this respect over the last 20 years despite the crises and the COVID pandemic, the story goes. Back in 2007, when the country joined the European Union, its GDP per capita, based on purchasing power parity, was under 40% of the bloc's average. The standard of living in Bulgaria improved by 9 percentage points over the last three years alone.

Still, the nation remains the poorest member state of the EU. At the current pace of development, it will take Bulgaria at least 10 years to join the rich nations' club by reaching the average standard of living in the EU, the paper predicts.

In terms of incomes, there is a lot to catch up on. The average monthly wage in Bulgaria is BGN 2,123. Calculated in the same currency, the average monthly wage in Italy is BGN 3,400, in Austria and France BGN 5,500, in Germany BGN 6,000, and in Denmark and Norway BGN 7,000. The highest levels are reported in Switzerland (BGN 12,000), Luxembourg (BGN 9,000) and the Netherlands (BGN 7,400). It may be comforting to know that prices in Bulgaria are the second-lowest in the EU, at 60.6% of the average level in the bloc, according to Eurostat, the daily says.

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Instead of reforming the civil servants remuneration system, the government disbursed millions of leva indiscriminately, SegaBG.com says in its top story. The new pay model in the public administration, which was expected to eliminate the differences between "poor" and "rich" ministries and agencies, consists in increasing absolutely all wages by a fixed amount of money. Such a model fails to address an important spending issue: the additional financial incentives for staff members, the website says, covering a government decree to distribute BGN 270 million to boost civil servant wages. The money had been provided from the state budget for the explicit purpose of healing imbalances which had grown for years, but the government decree shows that the task proved too big, the story says.

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The National Revenue Agency (NRA) is investigating people who bought luxury homes for more than BGN 750,000, mainly over the period from 2019 to 2022, according to an NRA report quoted in the main story in Trud. The authorities are looking to see whether the official incomes of these individuals really made the expensive property affordable to them. Housing property in other countries is being checked as well, with a special focus on apartments and houses in Greece and Dubai. The investigations in Greece have detected BGN 671,377 in undeclared tax liabilities. The NRA is also investigating people who have leased high-class cars.

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The Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) will move amendments to the Social Insurance Code to require all successive governments to pay Christmas and Easter bonuses to pensioners, Duma says in its main story. "This will make retired people independent of the will of the powerholders of the day and there will be no need to look for the money at the last moment," MP Georgi Gyokov said. Under draft revisions to the 2024 Public Social Insurance Act, which passed on first reading, people whose pensions are under the minimum level will receive a BGN 75 bonus for the upcoming Easter holidays. Before the second reading of the bill, the BSP will propose bonuses for all pensioners this Easter, suggesting that those whose pensions are below the poverty line should receive BGN 100, and the rest should get BGN 50.

POLITICS

With the campaign for the snap parliamentary elections already underway unofficially, analysts commented on political clashes, tensions in the Ministry of Interior and the fight against smuggling in a discussion aired live on the morning talk show of BNT1, the main channel of Bulgarian National Television. Political publicist Nidal Algafari said he sees no reason for Kalin Stoyanov to be removed from office as Interior Minister. Journalist and politician Alexander Simov sees irony in the fact that when Stoyanov became minister in June 2023, no one objected. News media editor Vladimir Yonchev recalled that the GERB party did not let Stoyanov go when public protests in November 2023 against the then president of the Bulgarian Football Union, Borislav Mihailov, escalated into violent clashes. Back then, Stoyanov's responsibility was viewed in a police context, not a political context, Yonchev said. According to him, it is not true that all ministers in the outgoing government were picked by the prime minister; Stoyanov is "a GERB minister", Yonchev insisted.

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"Blue Bulgaria Gets Off to Flying Start in Election Campaign", caps a Trud interview with Vili Lilkov, Deputy Chair of the Sofia Municipal Council. According to an announcement on Friday, the Blue Sofia coalition, which nominated Lilkov for mayor of the capital last October, has been renamed Blue Bulgaria and plans to run in the "2-in-1" elections to the national parliament and the European legislature in June. The daily describes Blue Bulgaria as a right-wing conservative coalition and a national alternative to liberal "assemblages" and leftist Eurasian political projects.

Discussing the term "Blue" in the coalition's name, which is traditionally associated with the Union of Democratic Forces (UDF, currently a partner to GERB), Lilkov says the UDF has long ceased to hold a monopoly on the colour blue as a political symbol of the dawn of democracy. Lilkov says Blue Bulgaria will have no problem compiling its lists of election candidates in any region, although it comprises many member parties. The coalition is yet to name its leader. It is willing to cooperate with other conservative entities.

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Small parties are gaining political weight, because after the June 9 snap parliamentary elections we are likely to hear exotic ideas about a cabinet of three or four parties, political scientist Teodora Yovcheva says, interviewed by 24 Chasa. Yovcheva expects that the conduct of elections to the national parliament and the European Parliament simultaneously on June 9 will raise voter turnout, which is good for Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria. She predicts that the political instability in this country will not end any time soon. "We have been in a spiral of early elections since 2021. A Bulgarian cabinet that serves out its term in office is more of an exception than a normal thing. This is very disturbing, given the fragile state of our democracy," Yovcheva says. "I am not sure that we are influenced by external factors. Even two wars are not enough to push Bulgaria into forming a government and keeping it," she reasons.