site.btaMedia Review: August 18

ALEXEY PETROV'S ASSASSINATION

Kalina Androlova writes for Trud that businessman and former commando Alexey Petrov played a significant role in helping to form the current Cabinet between political coalitions GERB-UDF and Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB). Androlova alleges that Petrov was trying to protect his own agenda through the father of CC leader Kiril Petkov. She proceeds to accuse President Rumen Radev and CC for wreaking havoc in the country by being unprepared to govern it.

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In a spread interview for Telegraph, security expert Tihomir Bezlov with the Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) spoke about Petrov's connections to the criminal world in Bulgaria. Bezlov says that towards the end of Sergey Stanishev's government in 2009, Petrov was rumoured to be controlling nearly the entire illegal prostitution market in Sofia. He was also rumoured to be involved with kidnappings. The interviewer, Kristi Petrova, says that she met Petrov in 2003, when he was under investigation. Later, Petrov was upset with the journalist, as she had "demoted" him by calling him a lieutenant in the criminal world.

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Deputy Prosecutor General Maria Pavlova told 24 Chasa that she does not expect Petrov's assassination to spark a war in the criminal world. Asked about the series of serious crimes that took place in Bulgaria over the past weeks, Pavlova spoke about the study of criminology and how it has been neglected in the country over the previous years. She added that most alleged perpetrators of the crimes in question have been apprehended, and the cases are being investigated.

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Ivan Savov told Duma that Petrov's assassination was surprising, as the victim had been relatively idle in Bulgaria's political and public life recently. Savov notes that Petrov was notorious for his insurance companies and adds: "If we could look at this philosophically, I believe this is a sign that one cannot escape their destiny or their past, as this murder was most likely connected to Alexey Petrov's activities".

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The weekly Capital states the Petrov can be considered a symbol of the criminalization of the Bulgarian business over the past 30 years, as he was frequently present in criminal news, summoned in court, he was acting as an agent of the special services. The article features a detailed biography of the assassination victim.

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Mediapool journalist Krasen Nikolov told Nova TV that Bulgaria's accession to Schengen does not depend directly on the shooting of Petrov. He specified: "The question is whether [Frans] Timmermans's Social Democrats in the Netherlands will get the upper hand in the polls before the elections. The domestic political situation matters - if Rutte's conservatives get a chance for a government, [Petrov's assassination] could be used [as an argument].

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Telegraph and Trud report that the woman, who was with Petrov during his assassination, was his physical therapist Miroslava Mihaylova. She was hired to help Petrov recover from the wounds he suffered from the last attempt on his life in 2015. Mihaylova was hospitalized in Sofia after she also got shot on Wednesday, however, she was able to describe the shooter while she was still conscious. According to the dailies, Petrov's three bodyguards were unable to react to the shooting, as they were instructed to keep distance from their boss, as he did not want them to eavesdrop on his conversations with Mihaylova. Journalist Yovo Nikolov said for Bulgarian National Television (BNT) that the distance was likely to be 30 to 40 metres.

POLITICS

An article in Capital is dedicated to the tax reports of several prominent Bulgarian politicians. They include There Is Such a People leader Slavi Trifonov, who owns real estate worth BGN 20 million, Deputy Prime Minister Mariya Gabriel and Environment Minister Julian Popov, who are both millionaires, CC leader Kiril Petkov, who owns four cars, and Economy Minister Bogdan Bogdanov who allegedly "has nothing".

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Representatives of the Central Election Commission (CEC) told Trud that the current timeframe of one week between the two rounds of local mayoral elections scheduled for the end of October is too short, which could pose problems with the preparation of the e-ballot. The October elections will be the first local elections in Bulgaria to rely entirely on machine voting. The CEC will work with Smartmatic's representative Ciela Norma to have the machine software parameterized.

Duma reports that the CEC has approved the design of the sample ballots for the upcoming elections.

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Minister of e-Government Alexander Yolovski told capital that Bulgarian legislation is analogue and outdated. Yolovski's priority is to continue the initiatives that were started by the previous regular government. He believes that he has found the formulation to develop Bulgaria's electronic government. One of the tasks before Yolovski's Ministry is to draft a general strategy to popularize the electronic services in the country.

DEFENCE

In a morning interview for Nova TV, Defence Minister Todor Tagarev said that the Kremlin uses every opportunity to try and harm Bulgaria's interests. He gave the blowing up of the Nova Kakhovka dam as an example, as Russian media outlets suggested that this would pollute the Black Sea and sink the 2023 summer tourist season.

ECONOMY

24 Chasa writes about the mining industry in Bulgaria, which in 2022 produced precious minerals worth BGN 4.2 billion, according to preliminary data from the Bulgarian Chamber of Mining and Geology (BCMG). This is a yearly increase of 13% - the highest over the last decade. The industry extracted 126.6 million tonnes of minerals last year, an 8% increase from the year before.

Dragomir Draganov, head of the BCMG, said that the average monthly salary for the mining industry here is BGN 2,370, which is one of the factors that keeps the staff motivated.

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According to Capital, the Energy Ministry's territorial plans for a fair transition of coal regions published last week can be labelled Bulgaria's last chance to receive EUR 1.3 billion in EU funding for the green transition. In order to receive the money allocated to the cities of Stara Zagora, Pernik and Kyustendil, the plans must clearly spell out what Bulgaria is going to do from now until 2038, which is the announced end date for the retirement of coal-fired power plants. The published documents, however, lack a detailed strategy, dates or specific investment projects to give people in the regions clarity about what they can expect. This creates fears among the thousands of people employed in the mining sector and causes negative sentiments about the whole transition, which, the article states, will happen with or without these plans.

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Capital writes about Rezolv Energy, a subsidiary of Actis, which is interested in investing in a photovoltaic power station near Silistra, on the Danube. This solar farm has the potential to be the largest in the country, producing more than 300,000 MWh of energy per year.

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Trud's front page reports data from the Financial Supervision Commission, according to which 9 out of 10 Bulgarian pensioners will not enjoy a life pension from private funds. These pensioners will only receive a pension from a Universal Pension Fund (UPF) for one to three years, after which they will only receive a state pension. By the end of June 2023, more than 16,000 people secured in UPFs had already retired.

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Telegraph quotes BGNES, which reports that price spikes of cocoa by 50% and of sugar by 25% will lead to the final customers paying 10 to 15% more for a chocolate bar. If the price increase from 2022 also gets taken into account, chocolate bars turn out to be up to 30% more expensive compared to the period before Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Duma writes that the Road Safety Institute has been alerted that the Road Infrastructure Agency (RIA) is issuing road repair certificates, even though no repairs have actually taken place. Expert Bogdan Milchev told Bulgarian National Radio that these supposed repairs turn out to be just removing shrubbery, cutting grass and levelling road lay-bys. RIA reported that in 2022 some BGN 4.5 billion was spent on major road repairs for 7 km of road and for ongoing repairs of another 200 km of road.

ENVIRONMENT

Telegraph quotes an investigation, which examined seawater from 11 Bulgarian beaches and found that the levels of E.coli bacteria were within the acceptable range in only four of those beaches. The worst polluted beaches are Popski beach near Tsarevo with the levels of E.coli being 41 times higher than the acceptable 500 cells per 100 ml of water, and the Primorsko south beach at the Dyavolska River estuary with the levels of E.coli being 22 times higher than the acceptable. The four beaches that fit within the acceptable range are Harmanite beach and the beach at Golden Fish Royal Camping, both near Sozopol, as well as the beaches at Sveti Vlas and Pomorie. The investigators said that the selection of the beaches in the study was based on a risk assessment to include those with the highest pollution risk.

Bogomil Nikolov commented on bTV that luckily very few people go to the Popski beach. He added: "There are no buildings, only unfinished constructions there, but a bathing ban must be issued. Regional Health Inspectorate Burgas has never found pollution on the 49 beaches that it regularly inspects".

In an interview for BNT, Minister of Environment and Water Julian Popov commented the results of the investigation saying that this study is about a health issue, not an environmental one. He stated that the study did not give a complete picture of the state of seawater and the cleanliness of beaches. He added that more detailed studies will be presented the following week.

According to the Minister, the level of pollution of the Black Sea is increasing. He stated: "If there is water pollution in the Black Sea, this problem is in no way related to Ukraine and the blowing up of the Nova Kakhovka dam".

CULTURE

Duma published an interview with two-time beatbox world champion Adriana Nikolova-Pechenkata, who spoke about her training for the competition. Pechenkata believes that beatbox should start requiring obligatory elements, so that it can be included to the roster of Olympic sports.