site.btaMedia Review: November 18

INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS – UKRAINE WAR

US President Joe Biden for the first time authorized the Ukrainian military to use long-range US missiles (ATACMS) to help defend its forcesa.

The long-range missiles will initially be used against Russian and North Korean troops in the Kursk region of western Russia, which is 190 kilometers inside Russian territory, according to the New York Times.

The permission to use the ATACMS tactical missile systems was reportedly given in response to Russia's decision to include DPRK troops in the fighting. The general U.S. policy reversal comes after some 10,000 North Korean soldiers were sent to the front in the Kursk region. The Biden administration fears more North Korean reinforcements may follow.

According to Reuters, Ukraine plans to launch its first ATACMS strikes in the Kursk region in the coming days. However, the White House declined to comment to a reporter from the agency.

Le Figaro reported that Britain and France immediately joined the US authorization and allowed the launch of their Storm Shadow/SCALP long-range missiles on Russian territory.

HEALTH – EU AFFAIRS

The European Commission is paying special attention to Bulgaria to reduce antibiotic use. Bulgaria is one of the countries for which this year the European Commission has created a video game to explain antimicrobial resistance and the careful use of antibiotics, said Roser Domenech Amado, DG SANTE’s Director of One Health, speaking on Bulgarian National Radio.
Antimicrobial resistance is expected to be responsible for the deaths of 10 million people worldwide by 2050. For this reason, tackling the problem where bacteria, viruses and fungi are no longer affected by medicines will be a priority for the new European Commission, said Amado, who explained how the Beat the Bug campaign and game was invented.

"We have identified the countries that in the latest Eurobarometer survey show the least awareness of antimicrobial resistance and how best to use antibiotics. We decided to focus on those countries, which are Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Spain, Greece and Cyprus. In these countries we try to reach young people through the games they like the most," Amado explained.

The game has been available online for about a month and the hope is to boost the effectiveness of European Antibiotic Awareness Day, which is traditionally celebrated on November 18. In Bulgaria, the total use of antibacterials for systemic use in human medicine has increased by 27% over a 5-year period between 2019 and 2023, the Bulgarian Health Ministry told BNR.

Bulgaria has a draft National Programme against Antimicrobial Resistance, but it has not been adopted so far due to the lack of approved funding, the ministry added.

BULGARIA-TURKIYE BORDER-TRAFFIC

The Turkish customs administration has reopened the Kapikule/Kapitan Andreevo border crossing to heavy goods vehicles after their movement to and from Bulgaria was suspended at 21:00 hrs on Sunday, the Bulgarian Customs Agency reported. The suspension was caused by the introduction of Phase 5 of the New Computerized Transit System, a Europe-wide digital system designed to provide better management and control of goods.

The pause in heavy-duty truck traffic through Europe’s largest land border pass caused vehicles to wait in very long lines. On the Bulgarian side, the queue stretched 40 km into the Maritsa Motorway, according to information provided by Haskovo Regional Governor Mehmed Ataman.

Heavy goods vehicle traffic via Kapikule/Kapitan Andreevo first resumed in the direction of Turkiye at 00:20 hrs on Monday, and then the opposite way at 00:50 hrs. By 06:00 hrs, the Bulgarian authorities had handled 505 outbound trucks and 230 inbound ones. The checkpoint is operating at full capacity. It can process about 3,000 trucks daily.

By 8 o'clock on Monday morning the queue was over 30 km long.

Haskovo Regional Governor said that talks would be held with the Bulgarian Red Cross leadership on Monday to provide food and water to the waiting truck drivers.

***

Another 600 speed cameras will begin to operate across the country in 2025, report various media outlets, quoting Interior Minister Atanas Ilkov. Sunday was a day of remembrance for all road victims in Bulgaria.

300 of the new cameras are for the toll system and 293 will be mobile and fixed speed cameras.

There will be more cameras in cities where there is a higher concentration of traffic accidents and fatalities. 

Ilkov reported that since the beginning of the year, there have been 416 deaths in road accidents - 60 fewer than last year, but overall there have been more accidents. Ilkov said that the Interior Ministry is constantly implementing measures to improve road safety. “Education is the most important factor and when drivers are sensible, I am convinced that road casualties will decrease,” the Minister said.

THE HOME SCENE

Speaking on the morning programme of bTV, Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria co-leader Assen Vassilev said that neither he, nor Kiril Petkov and Nikolay Denkov have spoken with Boyko Borissov after the elections on October 27. “As far as I know he has spoken with Atanas Atanasov [of coalition partner Democrats for Strong Bulgaria]. However, GERB must make a political commitment with specifics. This is the real conversation that should have happened at leadership level, but it has not happened because Boyko Borissov is afraid of the answers he has to give,” said Vassilev.

In his words, so far 86 MPs have supported the proposal of CC-DB for a sanitary cordon around Delyan Peevski. Vassilev asked whether Borissov would vote so that the leader of the MRF-New Beginning would be isolated from.

"We say that MRF-New Beginning should be put behind a sanitary cordon. And what we hear from GERB is that this was blackmail. They either believe that Peevski should be isolated or they don't. If they do not believe it - they should say that Bulgaria should be governed by Peevski,” he added. And from "Revival" they talk about the referendum on the leva.

Asked if CC-DB want to govern with GERB, Vassilev said "no". According to him, whether Bulgaria goes to elections again depends on the first political force.

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In an analysis, Sega.bg writes that President Rumen Radev is the big winner of the proceedings opened by the Constitutional Court after two petitions have been filed challenging the October 27 elections results. One is on the request of MPs from There Is Such a People, Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria and the Alliance for Rights and Freedoms, demanding a partial annulment of the vote because of irregularities in 52 voting sections. The second has also been filed by MPs - from Velichie, CC-DB, BSP and ARF, for full annulment of the election results. If the CC grants either of these requests, it will lead to changes in the National Assembly that range from serious to dramatic.

Three options are possible.

The first is for the court to declare that it sees no wrongdoing. This will undoubtedly cause a political storm. Some formations, such as CC-DB, for example, carried their entire election campaign on the back of allegations of vote rigging. And others, like Ahmed Dogan's ARF, are counting on contesting the elections to hit hard at MRF-New Beginning’s Delyan Peevski, whom they accuse of massive electoral crimes. A negative ruling by the CC will lead to attacks on the court, which will be accused of serving the interests of Peevski as well as his close associate Boyko Borissov (there have been such attacks on the court before).

At the same time, the political forces will secretly breathe a sigh of relief - in such a development there will be no reshuffle in parliament, which means that the elected MPs will keep their seats. And more importantly for politicians, no other party will enter the National Assembly, which means that the current parliamentary configuration will remain and political deals will happen more easily. For the public, however, there will remain the bitterness of suspicion that after so many accusations of electoral crimes, the truth has remained hidden.

Under the second option, the CC would partially annul the results. This is the most likely development.

Firstly, this will acknowledge the almost universal view that the elections were plagued with irregularities. Second, this recognition will have consequences - some MPs will lose their seats, while other candidates will win them. Most likely, Velichie will enter the National Assembly - those twenty votes that the party lacked to break the barrier will be found, even if only media reports have shown that they are there.

The mere fact that the members of parliament will be reshuffled will bring a lot of tension. More serious, however, are the consequences for the balance of political forces. In the next two months we expect a majority to be formed to form and support a government. This majority is unlikely to be solid, but rather fragile - at least this has been the experience of previous parliaments. Imagine that suddenly a new formation enters parliament, creates its own group, rearranges the seats, reduces the weight of the other groups, changes the composition of parliamentary committees. Such a shuffling of the cards will not be good for any formation, even on those who insist most on contesting the vote.

This will be a big problem, first of all, for the two political forces, which are expected to make a cabinet - GERB-UDF and CC-DB, which have the first two mandates. Not surprisingly, both formations did not want to challenge the election results. GERB still resent the possibility of an annulment, even though they pretend they do not mind. As for the CC-DB, they agreed with great reluctance. Immediately after the vote they were saying that this would not lead to a positive result, arguing that the institutions were covering up election irregularities rather than fending them off. In the end, the pressure became too strong.

The worst option is the third one for the Court to annul the vote fully.

This will upend the tables on politicians because it will send the country directly to new elections. If a majority and a regular government are formed in the meantime, they will perish. And if lawmakers haven't made changes to the Election Code to ward off past violations, voting will by the same flawed rules. The loss here is mostly for civil society, which will have to put up with another dubious election.

Then the question remains - does anyone benefit at all from this situation? Only President Rumen Radev remains by means of elimination. He played the cards the politicians gave him quite skillfully - he did not throw himself personally at others with accusations, thus giving the impression that he is a statesman concerned about law and justice, but left the parties to indulge in mutual denigration and discrediting; he left it to the MPs to refer the case to the Constitutional Court, which means that he will not be responsible for the outcome of the cases; found an occasion to once again highlight the work of his caretaker governments against the background of the current cabinet, which he attacked for helping "the rise of the oligarchy with appetites for political power"; launched himself before the public as an opponent of Delyan Peevski, who in his anger made a bunch of threats against the President; managed to show that he loves parliamentarism without quite acknowledging the current National Assembly (Vice President Iliana Iotova declared the parliament illegitimate, and then both participated in its grand opening).

ECONOMY

TrudNews.bg reports on how the Bulgarian economy is performing after the National Statistical Institute announced flash GDP estimates for the third quarter of 2024. 

According to the unadjusted data, GDP amounted to BGN 53.3 billion, which is the highest value in one quarter. Real GDP growth was 2.2% year-on-year and slowed slightly from the previous quarter (2.3%). This result is higher than the average for the European Union (1%) and for the euro area (0.9%), but is insufficient to ensure a sufficient convergence of the country's purchasing power parity to the economic zones mentioned.

The gross value added created was BGN 46.3 billion levs and increased by 2% in real terms. Almost 70% of the value added is generated in services, and its real growth is 0.5% on an annual basis. The relative share of industry is just over 1/4, while the remaining 6% or so comes from agriculture. Despite the ongoing decline in industrial production, value added in industry grew by 8.4% year-on-year (the highest growth in the last 7 quarters) due to construction and due to wage increases in the sector. Agriculture contracted slightly by 0.3% due to weather conditions during the year.

Trade at constant prices was unchanged year-on-year in the third quarter after declining since early 2024.

A growth model based on stimulating domestic demand by increasing current spending that widens the budget deficit seems unsustainable, especially when it is not matched by an increase in productivity. The risks are magnified by the existence of a currency board that prevents part of the debt issuance resulting from this policy from being absorbed by the central bank. In such a case, public finances and the economy as a whole become too dependent on access to international capital markets and momentum.

According to the budget implementation data for the third quarter of 2024, revenues increased compared to the like period of 2023 by more than BGN 1.3 billion. On the other hand, the increase in expenditures is almost BGN 2.5 billion, of which just under BGN 330 million is the increase in capital expenditures, which means that current expenditures increase by BGN 2.15 billion. As a result, the increase in the budget deficit is about BGN 1.18 billion, which is a direct stimulus to demand financed by external borrowing. As production lags behind consumption, this demand is met through imports. That is to say, part of the budget deficit, which is the result of higher wage and pension costs, actually stimulates foreign production, not domestic production.

In the third quarter, exports of goods and services from Bulgaria amounted to BGN 30.6 billion, down 0.1% year-on-year in real terms. The decline in revenues from goods was both from the European Union countries and from non-EU countries. Data for individual months show an uneven performance. 

The dynamics of imports are different, which can be seen as a somewhat positive signal for the economy. In the third quarter of 2024, spending on imports of goods and services reached BGN 27.6 billion and grew in real terms by 2.9% year-on-year. Spending on imports of goods from third countries increased by 11.8%, while imports from the EU fell -4.5%.

Developments in the short term depend mostly on whether and what kind of budget will be adopted for 2025. Any policies to curb the deficit will likely hurt the economy.

ENVIRONMENT

24 Chasa writes that Bulgaria will push for the completion of the Struma motorway in Strasbourg, where the 44th session of the Permanent Committee of the Convention on the Conservation of European Wildlife and Natural Habitats (Bern Convention) of the Council of Europe, will take place between December 2 and 6, quoting the Environment Ministry.

The meeting is expected to address the issue of construction of the last section of the motorway through the Kresna Gorge.

Bulgaria will insist that the file should not be opened, as the state has implemented all recommendations.

In early November, it emerged that environmental organizations had petitioned for the ninth time the Bern Convention demanding that the completion of the

highway through the gorge is halted. The environmentalists argue that it would threaten the habitats of reptiles, including two species of snakes and turtles. Besides the highway could endanger wolves and bears in the area despite the lack of incidents with predators.

The Environment Ministry recalls that there was a meeting on February 8, 2024 between the Bulgarian authorities and the competent Directorates-General of the European Commission where a need to achieve progress on the motorway in order to improve this vital transport link was stressed and the follow-up actions of the State were agreed.

"The agreed course of action requires the Bulgarian authorities to continue as soon as possible with the construction of the Eastern Bypass," the Ministry says.

On February 29 2024, the Council of Ministers approved the reports of the Minister for Regional Development and the Minister for Transport on the agreements of the meeting of February 8. All actions taken by on the part of the State for the implementation of the project are in accordance with requirements and in accordance with the agreements with the European Commission, the Ministry is adamant.