site.btaMedia Review: August 27

NEW CARETAKER CABINET

The news of the proposed new caretaker cabinet lineup by caretaker prime minister designate Dimitar Glavchev and the subsequent oathtaking ceremony in Parliament on Tuesday dominates the press.

Caretaker Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev and the new caretaker ministers took their oath of office in the National Assembly. This happened after President Rumen Radev issued two decrees - one appointing a caretaker government and one scheduling early parliamentary elections on October 27, bTV reported. The extraordinary sitting gathered the necessary quorum.  The swearing-in of the new ministers was greeted with applause, followed by the national anthem and the anthem of the European Union.

Dimitar Glavchev proposed for caretaker interior minister the head of National Police, Atanas Ilkov, whom Continue the Change co-leader Kiril Petkov linked with Movement for Rights and Freedoms co-chair Delyan Peevski and GERB leader Boyko Borissov, Mediapool writes.

Thus, Glavchev failed to dispel doubts that in the new caretaker cabinet there will be tensions along the line of the Interior Ministry, which has a key role in the conduct of the early parliamentary elections.  He explained that Ilkov was appointed in dialogue with Radev and argued his choice with the fact that there were no other candidates in the Interior Ministry for the post.

"There was no one else," Glavchev said.

 Glavchev raised doubts about a possible dependency on Peevski after in the first caretaker cabinet he headed he initially appointed regional governors linked to the MRF, after which he replaced them after they turned out to be on Ahmed Dogan’s side in the midst of the Peevski-Dogan conflict.

"First and foremost is responsibility and then comes living up to the public's expectations by ensuring good public order and fair and transparent elections - what everyone expects. At a later stage, we can already talk in detail about the overall organisation of the elections and what we will focus on to counter vote buying," Ilkov told Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) after his nomination was announced.

Radev expects the caretaker cabinet to nominate a candidate for Bulgarian EU Commissioner by the end of the week. Glavchev, for his part, said he was awaiting proposals from the National Assembly.

Three changes have been made in the composition of the new caretaker cabinet. The ministers of interior, foreign affairs and transport have been replaced.

There will be one deputy prime minister in the proposed cabinet - Finance Minister Lyudmila Petkova.

Foreign Minister will be the current deputy Ivan Kondov. The incumbent transport minister Georgi Gvozdeykov will not keep his post and will be replaced by Krasimira Stoyanova.

BNR: "Despite the risk of having the State blocked, enshrined in the amendments made to the Constitution, today we already have an appointed government. We also have a date set for the elections. However, the de facto crisis, you see, has not passed. It will find its solution only when the National Assembly manages to form a sustainable majority and this majority elects not just a regular but an effective regular government," President Rumen Radev said upon entering the National Assembly building where the new caretaker Cabinet is to be sworn in.

"This stability of the majority is a function of its legitimacy. It stems from two important factors - voter turnout and the fairness of the elections. When voter turnout is low, the fairness of the elections takes on enormous weight. I was adamant and continue to insist that the fight against the bought and controlled vote be made a priority, because this ugly phenomenon distorts the citizens' votes, enables compromised figures to gain access to the National Assembly, to dress themselves in institutional power and to control the fate of the Bulgarians. This is what fuels disgust and hopelessness among people," he said.

"I leave aside the speculation of who Atanas Ilkov belongs to. This is what his actions will show in this election campaign, where the Interior Ministry has a big role to play in preventing this bought and controlled vote," President Radev said.

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NOVA TV quotes MRF Co-Chairman Delyan Peevski as saying that President Rumen Radev has failed to observe the Constitution. "The assessment of the composition of the caretaker cabinet should be given by the one who appointed it after violating the Constitution. It is interesting to check how "Mr Cash" [that is how Peevski has started to refer to the President] Radev revoked the decree for [appointing as caretaker prime minister] Goritsa Kozhareva. The moment he violated the Constitution, he is effectively no longer President.  "He's already in complete violation of the Constitution. If this is established, he will automatically not be President. If the court rules that the President has violated the Constitution, there is no need for an impeachment procedure," Peevski said.

The Chairman of the MRF pointed out that they cannot approach the court on their own, saying that all political parties have knelt before Radev. "I do not know why. He is just a thief, I will expose him and Bulgaria will belong to Bulgarians again, not to Russia and Moscow."

Referring to comments linking the new interior minister to Peevski, he said. "What I've been hearing is that all the ministers are mine, the prime minister is mine, only the president is not mine, but maybe he is also mine. I can hear that, too, from them."

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"There is no surprise in the composition of the new caretaker cabinet. The whole situation is a consequence of the incompetently made changes in the Constitution. We haven't received an apology from their authors," said Atanas Zafirov, the interim chairman of the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), as quoted by Duma.

He commented that it was good that the caretaker prime minister had taken into account the public's attitudes and proposed a new candidate for interior minister.

"It is good that Dimitar Glavchev will not be foreign minister. We expect from Ivan Kondov a more active foreign policy and protection of national interests," he said.

Asked about the new [proposed caretaker] interior minister, Zafirov commented that his biography shows that he is a career professional. "I hope he will quickly provide guarantees to calm tensions in the system and in society and to ensure the fairness and transparency of the elections, which is the task of any caretaker government," he explained.

Atanas Zafirov stressed that the expectations from Prime Minister Glavchev are for urgent consultations with the political parties regarding the Bulgarian candidate for EU Commissioner. "If we are invited to such consultations, we are ready to propose names. We believe that this is the first and most important task before this cabinet, in view of the shortened deadlines - we have literally less than a week and the real possibility for Bulgaria to get a good portfolio for a commissioner. This cannot happen without dialogue with the political forces", Zafirov concluded.

ECONOMY

The absence of a stable government threatens to postpone for 2026 Bulgaria's entry into both the euro area and its full Schengen accession, despite the fact that the leading parties are relatively united that these two issues should be among the leading ones for the government.

The capital expenditure programme will continue to be almost entirely dependent on funding from the European Union and, in particular, what will come under the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RSP).

This is part of the Economist Intelligence Unit's August forecast for Bulgarian politics, governance and the economy until 2028.

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Bulgarian National Radio: The Ukrainian government continues to work on the purchase of two Russian-made nuclear reactors from Bulgaria in preparation for the winter, Ukrainian Energy Minister German Galushchenko said in an interview with Politico, TASS reported.

He predicted that his country's toughest winter is ahead. In his words, the government is pushing for the expansion of the Khmelnitsky nuclear power plant in the western part of the country with the reactors in question.

The Verkhovna Rada should pass a bill to regulate the purchase of the reactors, but this initiative does not have enough support in parliament, Galushchenko said.

According to Politico, there is suspicion among MPs that there are corruption risks, as well as suggestions that other sources of energy should be sought.

MOVEMENT FOR RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS RIFT

Mediapool: Since Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) Honorary Chairman Ahmed Dogan is no longer a shareholder in the company that owns the defunct Varna thermal power plant (TPP), he also ceases to be part of the management of the former coal-fired power plant, part of which was converted to natural gas but is currently not functioning. An application for registration of a decision to remove him from the board of directors of Varna TPP was submitted to the Registry Agency on Monday.

This took place at a meeting of the plant's owner, "Sigda", on 20 August. It was decided that only Danail Papazov and Andriyan Atanasov, should remain on the board. They also get a new five-year mandate. Papazov served as transport minister in a past government formed by the MRF and the Bulgarian Socialist Party.

The removal of Dogan is not unexpected given that he is no longer involved in the ownership of the power plant.

Two weeks ago it transpired that in early August the company "Sigda" Ltd, which is controlled by Papazov and acquired Varna TPP in late 2017 from the Czech CEZ, returned its shares in the power plant. They were transferred at the end of 2023 to the company "Sigda Investment", in which Papazov and Dogan have equal shares, but the company did not pay the BGN 8.5 million owed for the deal. So the shares are being returned to "Sigda" under the control of the former transport minister and former manager of the state-owned Port Varna.

This action was registered in the Commercial Register, and after the current decision to dismiss Dogan from the leadership of the TPP, the honorary MRF leader will no longer have anything to do with plant.

Its future is still unclear after one of the units was converted to run on natural gas, but high prices due to Russia's war in Ukraine, which began in early 2022, have virtually shut the plant down. The company had extensive plans to install solar panels and to use hydrogen as a fuel, but no progress has been reported.

Dogan made a surprise entry into the power generation business in 2018, acquiring a stake in "Sigda". Although he was part of the management of Varna TPP and part of the group around the power plant, he has never commented on anything related to the plant, nor has there been any sign that he is actually involved in decisions about its management. It is more likely that his entry as a co-shareholder had political objectives, which are apparently being pursued now with his exit from the business, whether by his own volition or under pressure.

Capital also covers the topic.