site.btaMedia Review: July 19

WILDFIRES

Efforts of firefighters, volunteers and military personnel to contain the wildfires that rage across Bulgaria continue. The topic dominates Friday’s media. 

The entire village of Voden (Yambol Region) is engulfed in heavy smoke because of the large wildfire in the area, the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) reported. A few houses were burned in the neighbouring village of Kraynovo, whose residents had to evacuate themselves to the former school building. Several elderly people from the nursing home in Voden were also evacuated. At 7 a.m. on Friday, dozens of firefighters, military personnel and forestry officials gathered in Voden, ready to be dispatched and fight the flames.

Another wildfire broke out near the village of Golyam Dervent (Yambol Region).

In the region of Haskovo, a fire rages in a mixed forest near the villages of Krivo Pole and Malak Izvor.

The fire between the towns of Harmanli and Lyubimets (Haskovo Region) has been contained. Some 1.5 ha of pine forest was burned, as well as 10 villas in the residential area of Trifoncheto.

Another wildfire near the village of Apriltsi (Pazardzhik Region) has been extinguished.

The fight against the fire near the village of Prolom (Plovdiv Region) continues. The fire near the village of Otets Paisievo (Plovdiv Region) has been localised.

The extinguishing of the fire in a coniferous forest near the village of Vaksevo (Kyustendil Region), which has started spreading towards the villages of Tishanovo and Frolosh, continues. Some 2.5 ha of forest have been damaged.

Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev is expected to convene the Security Council with the Council of Ministers on Friday.

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The Sega.bg online news outlet publishes an article on the visit of caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev and Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov to the village of Mamarchevo (Yambol Region), criticizing them for describing the authorities' organization to deal with the crisis as brilliant. The authorities, in the person of Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev and Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov and their subordinates, gathered in the Yambol village of Mamarchevo to boast how everything is fine with the wildfires and how well they have dealt with it. Their appearance in front of journalists came amid sharp criticism from politicians and parties, as well as complaints from people whose houses and property burned in the flames in recent days, Sega.bg writes. Prime Minister Glavchev explained that there were no problems in dealing with the fires and said that all the mayors praised them and called the organisation brilliant. The Interior Minister, on the other hand, scolded the journalists for interviewing only disgruntled people and urged them to look for people who were satisfied with the Interior Ministry and the Fire Department for saving their houses from flames, Sega.bg’s article further reads.

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Commenting on the raging wildfires in Bulgaria to BNR, former environment minister Yulian Popov stressed that the most important thing to not forget the fire crises when it passes. According to him, Bulgaria is not prepared for extreme phenomena and climate change will trigger more of those in the future. "We know more and more [wildfires] will occur, but we have to be well trained and prepared with machinery. We must prepare and think about the future, and not forget about the wildfires in the fall because they are going to happen again," Popov warned. He added that state institutions should pay extremely serious attention to the condition of micro dams across the country because they are neglected.

POLITICS

Capital Weekly’s frontpage headline reads "Is Peevski's network falling apart". According to the outlet, for the first time in its existence the complex system of dependencies that controls the state is seriously threatened. This network was created with political instruments and can be destroyed with such instruments if there is a willingness for taking a few simple steps. At the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) there is a real battle for control of the party, which is so far being won by its honorary chair Ahmed Dogan. Even if Delyan Peevski, one of the two MRF chairs along with Dzhevdet Chakarov, seizes the MRF brand and litigates, the party's voters will remain in Dogan's camp, Capital Weekly says. The situation in MRF is crisis after earlier in July, Dogan called for Peevski's resignation and Peevski responded that he would not give up. The battle is being fought on several fronts - on the media front, where Peevski and Dogan are vying for the hearts and minds of the party's supporters, and inside the party, where both are trying to draw the party's municipal and regional leaderships on their sides. Given the current situation, it seems that the fight will be one of life and death and it would not be surprising if the main arbiter in the dispute turns out to be the court, Capital Weekly’s article further reads.

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In a bTV interview, MRF Deputy Floor Leader Bayram Bayram, who Wednesday became Chair of the Parliamentary Committee on Budget and Finance, argued that there is a confusion in the MRF party structures, because "there are oppressors who insinuate false claims that the party is being taken over by the Bulgarians". According to Capital Weekly, Bayram is among those MRF members who are closest to Peevski. "The creation of a new party is not on the agenda. Mr Peevski has not spoken to me on this topic, nor have I heard him working on it. The new beginning started at the local elections last year [2023], the effects are visible, as well as with the adoption of the state budget. BGN 450 million have been allocated for infrastructure projects to the MRF municipalities," Bayram added, referring to municipalities governed by MRF mayors.

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Quoting unnamed lawyers, the Trud daily forecasts that snap parliamentary elections will most likely take place on October 13, 2024. The article reads that if the Constitutional Court rejects the amendments to the Constitution concerning the caretaker cabinet, the President will once again be able to appoint his secretaries and advisers as ministers. According to politicians and sociologists, whose names are also left unmentioned by Trud, the possibility of forming a government within the 50th National Assembly was already exhausted with the failure of the first exploratory mandate that was handed to the GERB-UDF coalition.

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In the morning talk show of the Bulgarian National Television, MP Pavela Mitova of There Is Such a People (TISP) said that TISP will hold talks with all parliamentary forces if the party is handed the third exploratory mandate for forming a regular government. TISP insists on a thorough conversation with all parties and will not delay the mandate. "We must look for the things that bring us together, not the things that divide us. We have no prior understanding with the head of State for the third mandate," she explained. "The priorities that the [Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria] CC-DB set out in the declaration could be a basis for seeking a majority. If there is a majority for the implementation of these anti-corruption policies, as they have called them, it means that there is a majority for the implementation of a broader governance programme," Mitova said, adding that TISP agrees with the proposals in CC-DB’s declaration and negotiations between the two political forces as possible.

On Monday, CC-DB came up with a draft declaration, calling for support for the adoption of seven legislative initiatives and resolutions, which are said to be "a necessary precondition for starting talks on a government with broad anti-corruption support" in this Parliament: honest and transparent election of members of the anti-corruption commission by at least 160 MPs, based on rules approved by the European Commission so as to guarantee an effective fight against corruption; a new Judicial System Act based on the principles laid down in the Justice Ministry's bill; amendments to the whistle-blowers protection law; amendments to the Code of Criminal Procedure curbing the misuse of special surveillance means; adoption of an Individual Bankruptcy Act; election of a new ombudsman; and launching a reform in the security services by introducing an integrity test as the first step.

ECONOMY

Capital Weekly publishes an article about the first sale on the Bulgarian market of a real estate technology startup (proptech startup) that was concluded on Tuesday. Polish leader in short-term rental management Renters.pl bought 82% of Bulgarian company Flat Manager. This is the first step for Renters.pl, the largest company in the sector in Central and Eastern Europe, towards regional expansion. Created seven years ago, Flat Manager is the largest company in the sector in the Balkans with some 600 apartments rented through Airbnb and Booking.com.

LOCAL AUTHORITIES

The 24 Chasa daily writes that Bulgarian municipal mayors will ask for a postponement of the date for introducing the new method of calculating the waste collection fee, which works on the 'polluter pays' principle. As of January 1, 2025, the fee will not be set as a percentage of the tax assessment, as it is now. The local authorities insist on holding a meeting with the Finance Minister, the Environment Minister, and the e-Governance Minister to resolve the issue. According to the National Association of Municipalities in the Republic of Bulgaria, the new methodology will increase the waste collection fee, because waste management has also become more expensive.