site.btaMedia Review: May 9

ISRAELI AMBASSADOR INTERVIEWED

"Full-Scale War Looming in Middle East," caps the transcript of an interview with Israeli Ambassador to Bulgaria Yosef Levi Sfari in 24 Chasa. The diplomat says Iran is a threat to Israel and the world; attacks on shipping routes jeopardize international trade and harm the economies of such countries as Egypt and Jordan; and Bulgarian hostages are still held by the Houthis, who are a Tehran proxy. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has not been killed or captured, so Israel has no choice but to enter Rafah, he says.

The Ambassador argues that peace cannot be based on hatred, brainwashing and an urge to destroy your neighbour. The principal strategy should be to deradicalize the Palestinian population. To Israel, as a democratic state, any killing of civilians is a tragedy which it tries to avoid by all means. Israel is making huge efforts to protect uninvolved civilians and strictly abides by international and humanitarian law, the Ambassador said.

POLITICS

For Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB), the coalition which shared in the previous government but is tipped to lose the most votes in the forthcoming elections, it would be most logical to retreat into opposition in the next National Assembly, political scientist Teodora Yovcheva says, interviewed for the "(Op-)Position" video channel of SegaBG.com.

Bulgaria will hold 2-in-1 elections to the European Parliament and the national legislature on June 9.

Yovcheva believes that, as an opposition force, CC-DB would be able to preserve their potential and then utilize it at the right moment, because "those 200,000 voters whom they are said to be going to lose now, will not vanish". GERB-UDF, the other coalition behind the latest regular government, did not need CC-DB in parliament, she says. Now, GERB-UDF could join forces with a lesser partner in addition to the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, but it will hardly be CC-DB, the analyst says.

She is surprised that ex-foreign minister and ex-European commissioner Mariya Gabriel is not a candidate to the European Parliament, and that former National Assembly chair Rosen Zhelyazkov is GERB's top-of-the-list candidate to the EU legislature. It is possible that a different future is being considered for Gabriel, Yovcheva speculates.

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The CC-DB parliamentary group will decrease by 18 members in the next National Assembly, mathematician and election expert Mihail Konstantinov predicts in the main story in Trud. His comment follows the publication of an Alpha Research poll showing voters' moods at the beginning of the official campaign for the June 9 elections. GERB-UDF are the frontrunners at the start of the race as they are supported by 25.4% of those who have decided they will certainly go to the polls. Konstantinov says that the top five out of a total of six parliamentary forces receive good ratings and will obviously make it into the new national legislature. The smallest parliamentary group, There Is Such a People, also stands a chance with a score of 5% in the poll. Two smaller entities, Blue Bulgaria and Bulgarian Solidarity, enjoy between 2% and 3% support in the poll and are therefore not unlikely to step over the 4% threshold for entry to the national parliament, the expert says.

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Former National Assembly chair Rosen Zhelyazkov believes that the rotation method which was agreed for the previous government should be abandoned. Speaking on the morning talk show of BNT1, the main channel of Bulgarian National Television, Zhelyazkov said the method is based on grave and unfounded compromise. If the next government is formed by a coalition, it should be structured according to the political weight of each partner and there should be a clear coalition agreement for a full four-year term, he said. Commenting on the fact that he heads candidates' lists for both the European Parliament and the national legislature, Zhelyazkov said this was a political decision, and after the elections his GERB party will decide whether he goes to Brussels or stays in Bulgaria. He added that he would like to stay at home, but he will obey the will of the party.

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Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) leader Kornelia Ninova told a national meeting of party veterans that at the start of the election campaign the BSP can proudly say that it has not betrayed any of its voters and has defended its ideology in Parliament with real actions, Duma reports in its main story. Ninova said it is thanks to the BSP's short stint in power that there are now cost-free kindergartens and nurseries, free schoolbooks, lower taxes for young couples with children, more food vouchers for workers, higher pensions, and a minimum wage which is 50% of the average wage.

ECONOMY

"The Financial Woes of the Caretaker Government," caps a signed analysis in Trud. It says that fundamental financial policy priorities of prime minister Nikolay Denkov's regular government (June 2023 - April 2024) are upheld by the present caretaker government. However, the caretaker cabinet inherited some stumbling blocks in the area of public spending. It had to invalidate an allocation of BGN 1.5 billion to clear the debt of the Toplofikatsiya Sofia district heating company. Other urgent measures are needed too, the story goes. First and foremost, the current government needs to reconsider a BGN 11.2 billion package for projects in what has come to be called Hydrogen Valley around the southern city of Stara Zagora. While the use of hydrogen as an energy source is a very good policy, the enormous sum can be reduced, and the participation of some companies can be revised because many of them lack the necessary capacity and experience in the energy and chemical industries. There is no fresh money for business and science under EU programmes, including the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the author argues.

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The ban on advertising gambling in the mass communication media, approved by the National Assembly on April 30, shows that there is something about the way of making even the best decisions in Bulgaria that inevitably leaves a shade of dissatisfaction, MediaPool.bg says, and goes on to explain why this particular decision was poorly thought-through.

The website points to what it calls an "almost inexplicable haste" and a total lack of discussion with stakeholders, which it describes as "suspicious". This is all the more strange for the silent yet uncompromising refusal to impose such a ban earlier - even decades ago. By channelling a portion of the huge profits from gambling into advertising in certain media, these media were made dependent. The sudden ban, which came months into the financial year, may turn out to be a corporate scheme to push media organizations into bankruptcy or to force their sale at a lower price. "The sudden abolition of a planned income will inevitably affect the quality of the content which our discerning viewers expect," Nova TV said in a position paper, as quoted in the story.

The author notes that the authorities overseeing the implementation of the law can exempt some types of gambling activities from the ban unless the law provides a list and descriptions of all activities to which the ban applies. Furthermore, the decision to outlaw gambling in the mass communication media while allowing it on billboards raises suspicions that it is intended to benefit outdoor advertising companies, the analyst says.

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Eighty per cent of elevators in Bulgaria were built on a technology which is more than 50 years old, 24 Chasa reports in its main story. They do not have the 39 safety features typical of the latest designs, the daily says, quoting Bulgarian Lift Association President Nikolai Marinkov. At the same time, according to Marinkov, the recruitment of elevator mechanics presents a serious problem. The average starting wage for such workers is around BGN 1,600 per month, which is why not many people apply for the job.

Bulgaria has only two vocational schools where you can study to become an elevator mechanic, one in Sofia and the other in Razgrad, human resources expert Georgi Parvanov tells the paper. No more than 50 to 60 such students graduate annually. In the meantime, 2,500 new buildings with at least 5,000 elevators in them come into use every year. The shortage of elevator mechanics will soon become so acute that their wages will grow more rapidly than the average rate in this country, Parvanov predicts.

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If you want to quit smoking, quit Bulgaria! The advice appears in a story on SegaBG.com, which covers a survey by GoSmokeFree.co.uk. According to the Bulgarian website, the survey ranks Bulgaria last in the EU+UK for available conditions to give up smoking. The factors taken into account include share of smokers, average price of cigarettes, support for fighting nicotine addiction, and number of smoke-free areas. The survey used several databases, including that of the World Health Organization.