site.btaMedia Review: August 10

Comments on Parliament’s recent legislative activity dominates Thursday’s news media.

POLITICS

On bTV’s morning show, Assoc Prof Nataliya Kisselova, a lecturer in constitutional law, commented that the recent legislative activity of MPs has resulted in nonsense due to Parliament being in a hurry. She gave as an example where the draft amendments to the Judiciary Act, which President Rumen Radev vetoed. To prevent him from scoring a point, the MPs overturned his veto but tabled a draft supplement on the next day on the sly to fix the flawed provisions. Also, the revisions to the Domestic Violence Act introducing harsher punishments focus on violence between partners, when there can be violence by parents against children and by children against adults, she argued. 

An article on Mediapool.bg reads that in their efforts to take measures against road traffic accidents, the MPs hastily revised the Penal Code to allow the seizure of intoxicated drivers’ vehicles. Two days after their entry into force, it is already clear that the new texts leave ample room for interpretation and can lead to sheer madness. The revisions come into conflict with other provisions of the Penal Code, former prosecutor and deputy justice minister Andrey Yankoulov warned in a Facebook post. The article reads further that key preconditions are missing for the newly introduced mechanism to work. For example, the vehicle’s seizure has to be authorized by the court, which requires evidence that the defendant was driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. There are only a handful of laboratories in Bulgaria where the blood samples of the driver can be tested, resulting in months of waiting. During that time, the defendant can be subjected to various penalties, such as revoked driving license and arrest. 

On Nova TV’s morning show, a case was presented where a driver that caused a fatal traffic accident with one dead and several injured back in May is yet to get her blood test results. Lawyer Alexander Kashumov commented that the amendments concerning vehicle seizure are inadequate in that they do not take into view that drivers’ violations differ in terms of gravity. The law does not require seizure when a driver has caused bodily harm or death, but requires it when a driver has alcohol or drugs in the system – that goes against normal logic, Kashumor argued. Lawyer Silvia Petkova commented that the seizure of a vehicle is a non-proportionate penalty, because vehicles differ in value, so drivers who have committed the same crime will be punished differently. 

On Bulgarian National Television, the latest revisions to the Penal Code were discussed by Bulgarian Automobile Union head Emil Panchev and Yonko Ivanov, head of the Union of Driving Instructors. Panchev described the amendments as more revolutionary, noting that they are for the better. However, the vehicle seizure measure leaves many things unclear, for example when can the vehicle be seized and who can do it. A new Road Traffic Act is sorely needed, but the matter has been pending for years and none of the last parliaments took up that task, he commented. According to Ivanov, the majority of decision-makers are clueless about transport policy, and the latest revisions are populist and not based either on an analysis of the situation or predictability of what will happen after the changes’ adoption. The amendments will be reconsidered in two months, he predicted.

Capital.bg writes that out of populism, for years Parliament has been adopting exotic texts in the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure that result in legal messes. Almost all public scandals in Bulgaria can be linked to subsequent frantic revisions to these two codes, regardless of who is in power. The media cover the revisions obediently, and experts’ explanations why the amendments will not work remain unheard. In the best case, the changes never lead to a result, but usually they worsen the existing issue. The latest revisions concerning the seizure of vehicles for intoxicated driving and domestic violence can lead to absurd situations, the article reads.  

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On Segabg.com, an analysis by Tanya Petrova reads that the Denkov Cabinet stuck to the tradition where a new government complains of bad legacy. The second month of the Government’s term in office was reported on in two long media formats: a news conference with the participation of the ministers with the most problematic sectors and a controlled talk between Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov and Continue the Change’s PR Nayo Titsin based on citizens’ questions. In both cases, Denkov complained of “bombs” inherited from the caretaker government. He threatened to turn to the prosecution service if any violations are established during the ongoing checks. The goal of this threat is hardly to have the guilty charged. More probably, this is Prime Minister’s insurance policy in case of future problems, which can easily be attributed to the previous incumbent. This operation relies on people’s short memory span; they are expected to have forgotten that part of those in power now have been in decision-making positions in the last two years. Whether this tactic of “those before me are to blame” will work remains to be seen but, sadly, it is becoming the only tactic possible in a State that has stopped. For three years now, the incumbent have been digging in the past instead of dealing with the future, and that will not improve the situation, the analysis reads.

ECONOMY

Trud’s front-page article reads that while the central bank’s statistics show an annual increase by BGN 7 billion in the bank deposits of households at the end of June, a survey by Eurobarometer shows 23% of Bulgarians have no savings, compared to 16% in the EU on average. Twelve per cent of Bulgarians have savings for less than a month, compared to 9% in the EU, and only 24% can live on their savings for over six months, compared to 33% in the EU. At the same time, the Bulgarian National Bank reports a record-high number of deposits - 1,324 - of people owning over BGN 1 million at the end of June. That is an increase by 27.1% compared to June 2022. 

On Bulgarian National Radio, credit consultant Tihomir Toshev commented on the central bank’s data that consumer loans have increased by BGN 1.4 billion in the last three months alone. According to him, the increase is the result of the still active real estate market and interest in the purchase of dwellings. The number of mortgage loans is actually dropping, but due to the high prices of real estate there is a rise in the amount of the loans. Despite being cautious because of the expected rise in interest rates on loans, people still take loans because they want a home of their own, the unemployment level is  low and incomes have increased over the last several years. The interest rates will not increase sharply; they will rise slightly in autumn, he said. Entry in the eurozone will not have an effect on loans, because there the interest rates are lower, the expert argued.

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Telegraf has an interview with financial analyst Dessislava Nikolova, who says employees themselves determine to which bank account their salary is paid. Recently adopted legislative revisions ban the payment of salaries in cash for companies with more than 100 employees.

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On Bulgarian National Television, former social policy minister Hristina Hristova and Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association Executive Director Dobrin Ivanov commented on more money for mothers in the second year of maternity leave versus them going back to work sooner after childbirth. According to Hristova, mothers should receive child benefits to the amount of the minimum wage in the second year of maternity leave. Ivanov said that the State has chosen a policy of encouraging mothers to stay at home with their children for two years and turning its back on the obligation to help them through crèches. Here, paid leave for pregnancy and childbirth is 58 weeks, while in the other European countries it is much shorter: 14 weeks in Germany, 15 weeks in Finland and Sweden, and 18 weeks in Austria. There are around 180,000 children aged between 0 and 3 years in Bulgaria, while the crèches have places for 10,000 of them, Ivanov specified.

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Trud has an interview with Prof Dessislava Petrova-Antonova, a lecturer at Sofia University’s  Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics and Research Lead at GATE Institute. She presents the pilot project she heads, Digital Twin City, within which a 3D information model of Sofia is created and analyses, simulations, and visualizations of the urban environment and processes (urban planning, ambient air quality, pedestrian accessibility, and others) are developed. She explains how her work can help improve the life of urbanites. 

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Duma reports that the four public procurement procedures for the acquisition of new trains, worth over BGN 2.8 billion exclusive of VAT, have been revised by the Transport Ministry and will now undergo preliminary control at the Public Procurement Agency and the Finance Ministry’s National Fund Directorate. The revisions, aimed at cutting costs by removing additional activities, have scrapped the requirement for building a repair base for the compulsory maintenance of the rolling stock in the next 15 years. Also, the admissibility criteria have been broadened to allow more manufacturers to participate. The contracts for the 32 new trains and 18 locomotives should be concluded by the year’s end and their delivery, within 33 months.  

HOME AFFAIRS

On Bulgarian National Television, Health Minister Hristo Hinkov commented on the issue with the pediatrics ward of the hospital in Vratsa (Northwestern Bulgaria), whose staff are leaving and whose executive director Keti Tsoneva resigned. Hinkov plans to visit the hospital and meet with its board and staff. The hospital has had problems for years, he noted, and the COVID-19 crisis has only made them escalate. Pediatricians are not well-paid and the pediatrics ward is indeed not winning, but focusing on what is winning and what is not is a fatal way of looking at a hospital’s work, he argued.

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24 Chasa’s front-page story is about a 77-year-old woman who lost both her son and her grandson in less than a year, but the donation of their organs resulted in her gaining a son and a granddaughter. 

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24 Chasa has an interview with Veliko Tarnovo Mayor Daniel Panov, who talks about vandalism as a costly problem for municipalities. In Veliko Tarnovo (North Central Bulgaria), fixing the damage to public property cost BGN 100,000 in 12 months only; the money comes from public taxes and fees and would be enough to build several children’s playgrounds, he notes. In his words, it is hard to say whether there has been an escalation in vandalism, but clearly it reflects the division in society and the growing aggression in the last years. The local authorities’ powers to react to vandalism are limited. When someone wants to submit an alert, two witnesses are needed, and citizens usually refuse to testify. CCTV footage is invalid as evidence in court and is rarely used to identify vandals. Municipalities fall victim to the vicious practice where they get burdened with new responsibilities and obligations but without the necessary mechanisms and resources to carry them out. 

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Telegraf’s front-page article is about the Sunny Beach sea resort, which the daily compares to Babylon.