site.btaMedia Review: April 24

TREND POLL

A poll by the Research Center Trend commissioned by Nova Broadcasting Group and 24 Chasa and dedicated to the attitudes of Bulgarians towards the main institutions, parties and topical issues was widely covered in the media on Wednesday.

The research was conducted between April 12 and 19 through a direct semi-standardized face-to-face interview with a tablet among 1,002 adult Bulgarians.

24 Chasa’s leading story presented an overview of the poll’s results. According to them, GERB-UDF is building an over 9% lead ahead of Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) before the June 9 elections. The largest political force in the legislature maintained its support levels registered in recent months at 24.9% of voters, while CC-DB would be supported by 15.5% - a just over 2% decline of support, which Trend attributes to the negotiations surrounding the rotation of the last regular government and the accusations over the Customs Agency. Due to this decline, the battle for the second, third and fourth places is expected to be close and Trend notes that the performance of the political forces in the upcoming election campaign will be crucial for its outcome. The poll shows that the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) would be supported by 14.4% of voters and Vazrazhdane – by 14.2%. The fifth position for the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) remains secure with 9.1% of the vote, and in sixth place is There Is Such a People (TISP) with 4.8%. Nearly 7% of Bulgarians said that they will use the "I do not support anyone" option. Some 49% said they would vote in the upcoming early parliamentary elections. The electoral picture in the European elections is quite similar. In these elections, Bulgarians report a slightly higher support for CC-DB with 16.1% and a minimal difference in the negative direction for BSP (8.7% of voters). 

According to the poll, the caretaker cabinet has 20% approval of Bulgarians, while just 11% of Bulgarians have a positive attitude towards the constitutional amendments in the part related to caretaker cabinets. Despite discussions in the public space in recent months, 39% of respondents said they were not familiar with the changes. On the other hand, 38% of respondents have a negative attitude towards the constitutional amendments. Further decline was registered in the assessment of Parliament's work, as in April the positive assessment was 12% and the negative one reached 80%. The assessment of the President has not shown any major fluctuations for nearly 10 months. 

In an interview with Nova Television, Trend’s politologist Dimitar Ganev commented on the results. He pointed out that in this situation it will be difficult to form a government between two of the political formations. He outlined three possible scenarios: 

1. A government formed by GERB-UDF, CC-DB and MRF. 
2. A government formed by GERB-UDF, MRF and a third political force different from CC-DB
3. New elections

In an interview with 24 Chasa, Ganev stressed that the research was completed before the announcement of Vanya Grigorova's political project [she was the runner-up in the local elections in Sofia]. He added that there could be differences between the results of the parliamentary and European elections, which could shift the alignment of the parties, as Bulgarians in Turkiye can vote in the national elections, while for the European election can be voted only in Bulgaria and the EU Member States. "In the last general election, MRF had over 60,000 votes from abroad," Ganev recalled. 

POLITICS

On Bulgarian National Television’s morning show, Democratic Bulgaria Co-Chair Atanas Atanassov said that caretaker Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov lived in a secret quarters “which is an absolute crime” and was linked to businessman Nikolay Filipov [also known as Niki the Customs Man, he is rumoured to be involved in oil smuggling, illegal logging and timber export schemes]. His statement was based on an interrogation from 2023 in pre-trial proceedings of the former head of Interior Ministry's Internal Security Directorate, Stefcho Bankov, brother of arrested Customs Agency Director Petya Bankova. “Is it a coincidence that after Bankov's interrogation, his sister's investigation began," Atanassov asked. 

He described the charges against Bankova and former Interior Ministry's Secretary General Zhivko Kotsev as a „fabricated plot“. “The State Agency for National Security Chair says the investigation started a year ago. However, at that time, neither the Secretary General nor the Customs Agency Director held their posts,” he pointed out. “One of the important tasks of those who initiated and organized it [the case] is to divert attention from the Notary Affair*. Because there are very heavy dependencies there. The second goal of the organizers is to discredit our coalition in the run-up to the elections”, Atanassov said.

* Martin "The Notary" Bozhanov was shot dead on the evening of January 31. According to media reports, he was a large-scale fixer of people's problems with the judiciary. He has been implicated in building a network of connections with prosecutors and judges whom he allegedly bribed, threatened, blackmailed or otherwise pressured to treat his "clients" favourably. In early February, Parliament set up an ad hoc committee to probe the facts and circumstances surrounding the activity of Bozhanov and his group.

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On bTV's morning show, former labour and social policy minister Ivanka Shalapatova said she will not take part in any election campaign, as she wants to remain party-unbound. "In the future, I can always be useful to any party that earns the trust of the people and has a clear vision that the quality of life in Bulgaria should be at the centre of any policy," she added. Shalapatova stressed that the system in the Labour and Social Policy Ministry is "extremely dysfunctional". " The quality of life of the people is low. We have extremely high child poverty. Huge numbers of children live in material deprivation. We have a heavy investment from our taxes as citizens in benefits that are neither targeted nor based on a thorough assessment of people's individual needs," she explained.

ECONOMY

Trud features an interview with Ognyan Boyukliev, a member of the Scientific Council of the Institute for Economic Research at the Bulgarian Academy of Science, on the reasons behind the high milk and meat prices in Bulgaria. "In 2021, milk produced in Bulgaria was enough for about 60% of dairy products on the domestic market. There is no milk, but there is also no government and agriculture ministry policy. For 2023, due to the inadequate policy of the Agriculture Ministry, over 700 dairy farms have been closed down and the animals sent to slaughterhouses," he pointed out. Boyukliev attributed the high prices mainly to the lack of regulators on the market. "The average price of raw milk in our country is BGN 0.9. Dairies and processors buy it at that price. There, some of it is pasteurized and packaged and goes to retailers at around BGN 2, and they sell it at BGN 3," he explained. When it comes to meat prices, they grow due to the high percentage of imported products on the market. „More than 60% of meat is imported - in beef and veal this share is 90%, in sheep and lamb - 60%, in pork - 40%, even chicken as a result of unregulated imports from Ukraine is now about 35%,“ he noted.

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In an interview with the Bulgarian National Radio, Lyudmil Ivanov, an expert on digitalization and management in rail transport, commented on the draft adopted at first reading by the National Assembly, which foresees the possibility for foreign carriers to also be able to operate passenger rail services in the country. “The most important thing is to provide a quality service to travelers,” he said. “The very fact that Bulgarian State Railways’s (BDZ) existence is under threat is already prompting significant reforms in the company,” Ivanov underlined. For the 2021-2023 period, BDZ reported a 23% growth in costs. Meanwhile, from 2012 to 2024 there was only 1.8% growth in ticket prices. “The forthcoming 20% increase in passenger rail fares as inevitable and necessary,” he stressed. However, Ivanov urged BDZ to reconsider and limit the increase only to the new rolling stock, which is expected to be delivered by the summer. On March 29, the Bulgarian Transport Ministry said that BDZ - Passenger Transport and Deutsche Bahn had signed a contract for the delivery of 76 refurbished passenger cars. The first 19 cars will arrive in Bulgaria in April and the remaining 57 will be delivered on schedule by early June. “There is also a possibility that the rolling stock we are currently buying will be leased or sold,” the transport expert said. If BDZ does not win the right to carry out this service over other companies, the state will probably have to get rid of part of the building stock, Ivanov added.