site.btaMedia Review: April 10

NEW CARETAKER CABINET

An analysis by Prof. Ivan Todorov in 24 Chasa says that the cabinet of Dimitar Glavchev may govern until or beyond October. 

For understandable reasons, GERB said it would not govern in a coalition only with the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF), even if the two parties had a majority. In the current National Assembly GERB, MRF and There Is Such a People lack 5 deputies to have a majority. The BSP in the near future will be uncomfortable for a coalition because it supports Russia.  Of course, there will be some negotiations between GERB and PP-DB. If there is not particularly strong external pressure, it is not very likely that the contradictions between these two coalitions will suddenly disappear. 

In addition, there are no significant reasons for potential candidates for caretaker prime ministers to change their minds. There is some possibility that some other candidate will change his mind, but it is not very likely that the President will task them with forming a government. 

So, it is very probable that a six-month rule of the caretaker government can be achieved. And there are no legal obstacles to this being repeated. We have already witnessed how there were 3 caretaker cabinets, and these were named by the president. In addition, there is a working legislature, which can easily pass laws under a caretaker government. 

Naturally, a question arises – why it was necessary to change the constitution to curb the powers of the president in relation to forming a caretaker government. However, only the president is elected by a majority vote by all Bulgarian voters. The Constitution should not be made for a specific president and for specific political parties. 

The changes in the basic law, made in view of specific people and parties, show their flaws. 

It is a separate issue that there is no logic to provide in the constitution for caretaker governments in the event of the resignation of the government. In the large number of parliamentary states, individual caretaker governments are not appointed when the regular government resigns. Instead, the regular government continues to work until the next regular government is formed. 

If amendments to the constitution abolished the caretaker government, it would not change the form of government. and would not violate the constitution.  

Subsequent shifts of people in the administration and state-owned companies further hamper their work.  

Finally, Todorov argues that the Constitution should prohibit the National Assembly from taking populist decisions concerning the budget in the event of resignation of the government, and upcoming elections after the National Assembly voted Easter supplements for pensioners with a pension of BGN 525.  

Todorov concludes that the lack of a regular government reduces Bulgaria’s chances of full entry into Schengen and timely admission to the euro area. Politicians should have a greater responsibility towards Bulgaria. Instability does not create conditions for investment and for rapid and stable development. 

TWO-IN-ONE ELECTIONS

Speaking on the morning show of bTV Central Election Commission chair Kamelia Neykova  said that for the first time there will be two elections simultaneously with candidate lists and preferences. The voting rights for the general and the European elections are different. Therefore, there will be two separate electoral lists for the two elections.  

The Commission has terminated the previous public procurement for the voting machines, which were only for the European vote. Now there is a public procurement for 2-in-1 voting machines, she said. The budget for the election expenses is adopted by a decision of the Council of Ministers. On Tuesday, CEC approved a draft budget of around BGN 98 million, of which CEC will receive BGN 4.6 million for activities for awareness campaigns, media packages, remuneration for members of committees and persons who support the electoral process. Other state bodies also have responsibilities to participate in the electoral process.  

ENVIRONMENT

TrudNews writes that Parliament will put an end to a possibility for environmental groups to delay and appeal the approval procedures for sites of national importance. This will happen with amendments to the Investment Promotion Act, which proposed by MPs from GERB-UDF and MRF between the first and second reading of the bill. 

Sites of national importance are, for example, the construction of units 7 and 8 of Kozloduy NPP, highways, tunnels, bridges, railways and those related to national security. The deadlines for decisions by the competent authorities in the implementation of such projects will also be shortened. 

In order to prevent delays in the implementation of sites of national importance and sites of strategic importance, a one-instance appeal of environmental assessments is returned, with a deadline of up to 6 months for ruling by the Supreme Administrative Court. Back in 2017, Parliament, in order to stop the deliberate blocking of large projects by green NGOs, introduced the one-instance appeal. Subsequently, under pressure from environmentalists and former Environment Minister Borislav Sandov, in 2022 the parliament returned the two-instance appeal. The changes concern only those of national and strategic importance. 

The definition of "site of strategic importance" will also be changed, and this will be any object included in Bulgaria's Energy Strategy until 2020 or the Integrated Transport Strategy until 2030. The amendments introduce tacit consent when for 14 days the Environment Ministry does not rule on a request for an Environmental Assessment or EIA. The deadlines for pronouncement by the Ministry and the regional Inspectorates on environmental procedures are halved. 

Similar to the practice in most European countries, the validity periods for Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) decisions are extended from 5 to 15 years. The proposals also include amendments to the Spatial Planning Act (SDA). It is possible for the general development plans of the municipalities in connection with sites of national or regional importance or sites of the technical infrastructure to be changed by an order of the Minister of Regional Development or by the regional governor. This greatly facilitates the work of municipalities. All these changes will allow for faster implementation of projects under the Recovery and Resilience Plan and all major infrastructure projects. 

INTERIOR MINISTRY CHIEF SECRETARY - RESIGNATION

The caretaker government of Dimitar Glavchev on Tuesday proposed to the President to release from office Zhivko Kotsev as Chief Secretary of the Interior Ministry. The government decision was adopted in absentia. 

Discrediting materials about Kotsev were leaked to the media, including pictures showing him with a person charged in a contraband investigation. 

The Interior Ministry Chief Secretary resigned last week but withdrew his resignation shortly after that because, as ex-PM Nikolay Denkov quoted him as saying in an alert to ad hoc Prosecutor Daniela Taleva, that he had been pressured to step down by acting Prosecutor General Borislav Sarafov and Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov. 

According to President Radev, "the prestige of the Interior Ministry has been deeply damaged and such a connection between the Secretary General of the Ministry of Interior and large-scale is a mockery of statehood." 

He said that for him the smuggling scandal was "an attempt to transform a purely criminal case into a political one with a pre-election purpose".  Radev said that it should be thoroughly checked whether there was pressure on Kotsev, as well as whether Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov's name is related to smuggling. 

Radev congratulated the State Agency for National Security and its director Plamen Tonchev for their courage to "reach into the highest levels of government to protect the statehood." 

BULGARIA IN FOREIGN MEDIA

In a Financial Times interview, outgoing Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov said that corruption in Bulgaria remains a main avenue for Russian meddling and has contributed to the ruling coalition falling apart. Nikolai Denkov told the publication that the cabinet he headed for less than a year struggled to root out graft and deeply entrenched connections to Moscow.  

“A lot of the Russian influence in the past, in the energy sector for example, came through corruption,” Denkov said, in reference to energy deals struck by previous governments that benefited Russia’s energy giant Gazprom. He said his party, We Continue the Change, remained committed to fighting both corruption and Russian influence: “We work to push these two agendas in parallel because we know they’re linked to each other.”  

Among the deals former prime minister Boyko Borisov secured while in office was a pipeline called TurkStream, which Denkov and other Bulgarian politicians say benefited Gazprom. Such deals “should be investigated” Denkov said. Borisov has maintained that the pipeline was not detrimental to Bulgarian interests. 

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Dnevnik.bg cites a Sky News report about a benefit fraud gang, made up of five Bulgarian nationals, who stole £50m. 

Galina Nikolova, 38, Stoyan Stoyanov, 27, Tsvetka Todorova, 52, Gyunesh Ali, 33, and Patritsia Paneva, 26, pleaded guilty to fraud and money laundering-related offences. 

The benefit fraud gang made thousands of false claims for Universal Credit using either real people or hijacked identities and backed them up with an array of forged documents, including counterfeit payslips and fake GP letters in the largest prosecution of its type in English legal history.   

As part of the investigation, police identified three "benefit factories" in London where repeated false claims for benefits originated from. 

During raids, police also found "claim packs" containing forged and false documents, as well as bundles of cash stuffed in shopping bags and suitcases, a luxury car, and designer goods including watches, jackets, and glasses. 

Investigators worked together with partners in Bulgaria and Eurojust.