site.btaMedia Review: August 29

All dailies report on the anniversary of King Boris III's death and the commemorative services that were held on the occasion.

All media report on a road accident that resulted in the death of a child in the village of Prilep, Southeastern Bulgaria, on Monday. The child allegedly ran suddenly on the street, preventing the lorry driver from being able to brake on time. The driver stayed at the scene and was attacked by relatives of the child. He was stabbed during the altercation and died from blood loss. The police who arrived later arrested seven people who allegedly took part in the fight.

POLITICS

24 Chasa reports that GERB leader Boyko Borissov expressed dissatisfaction with the change of the State Consolidation Company (SCC) Board of Directors. Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov of Continue the Change (CC) responded that he and Deputy Prime Minister Mariya Gabriel of GERB take part in all discussions before confirming a new minister. CC wrote in Facebook: "Any time we discuss heads of agencies who were appointed by [President Rumen] Radev, he reacts aggressively. That is why it is important that Borissov makes a choice: does he help the President maintain his influence, or does he give the Parliament a chance to decide the fate of security in Bulgaria".

On Bulgarian National Television's morning show, Economy Minister Bogdan Bogdanov described the change of SCC's leadership as necessary. "I believe that the team that was working until last week has not done its job since it was appointed by former caretaker minister Nikola Stoyanov a little over a year ago," Bogdanov clarified. He noted that SCC has not submitted on time its annual financial report for the second year in a row, which is a violation of the law. Bogdanov also identified the inefficiency of the company's management as a problem, referring not only to SCC but also the 10 active enterprises that operate under it. "We need to know what the goals of these enterprises are, what their business programme is, what the criteria by which we evaluate their efficiency are. The SCC itself has no business programme," he stressed.

TURKSTREAM

Mediapool and Dnevnik report on information from the Anti-Corruption Fund (ACF) based on leaked emails of Russian politician Alexander Babakov that prospective contractors of the TurkStream project have also secretly negotiated in the office of Bulgarian-American Credit Bank (BACB), whose Supervisory Board Chair is Tzvetelina Borislavova. A leaked email from July 19, 2019, suggests that BACB was selected by the contracting parties to be the bank implementing the project. Mediapool quotes the ACF who stated that the scandal lies in the background of this email. The email reads: "There has been no progress in the negotiations that took place at our bank's offices in Sofia between Arkad and [OAO] TMK", i.e., between the first and the second ranked bidder after the submission of the tender documents.

The ACF revealed that the goal of BACB during the negotiations was to have the operation start as soon as possible in a timeframe favourable to the Russian side.

The negotiations, according to the email, were "on our initiative", leaving open the question of who "we" is - the BACB or another party on whose behalf the Bank was acting. GERB was in power at the time, and Borislavova was known not only as a banker but also as a business and family partner with then Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, the ACF pointed out.

ECONOMY

The Bulgarian National Radio had an interview with Lachezar Bogdanov, chief economist at the Institute for Market Economics where he said that Bulgaria has been able to slow down inflation. "The increase of prices is slowing down considerably from what we have seen over the last year, but we are seeing an increase in some prices these months as well. […] July and August saw an increase in energy prices, which will affect monthly inflation. The important thing is that on an annual basis inflation is coming down. In other words, if we look at how much prices have increased over a 12-month period, that change is much smaller now than it was in both the winter and the fall."

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24 Chasa reports that investors in renewable energy sources were concerned after learning that the Ministry of Energy is planning to put to the vote draft bills that would lower the ceiling after which the state will collect deductions from electricity producers. If adopted, the new legislation will likely apply to the Kozloduy nuclear power plant as well as coal power plants at a time when the industry is already affected by the prices of electricity. Another factor that should be taken into account is the need for expedited investment in the green transition.

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On Bulgarian National Radio, credit consultant Tihomir Toshev said now is a good time to refinance mortgage loans. "Because of competition on the market there are lucrative promotional offers where banks offer to cover the notary fees, which makes refinancing even more profitable," he said. He also said: "Interest rates are going up very slowly and very smoothly, in small steps. Currently, the increase is between 0.1 and 0.3 percentage points. We will probably see another one like that by the end of the year. […] Almost all people who have loans have now realized that a gradual rise in interest rates is on the way, and many are taking steps to refinance their loans to get down to minimize the interest rate." He expects demand for loans to remain high until the end of both this and next quarter.

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An article in Duma quotes an analysis conducted by the Institute for Market Economics, according to which some 495,000 Bulgarians have to travel to a different locality to reach their place of work: 325,000 of them travel to another municipality, while the remaining 170,000 work in the same municipality as their home but travel to another locality. Pernik, Western Bulgaria, is the leader in labour migration with 14,400 workers, 39.1% of Pernik's labour force, having to leave the town to get to work.

24 Chasa adds that Sofia attracts some 67,000 workers from outside the city. According to the article, no big city in Bulgaria is capable of meeting its own labour needs by relying entirely on its own inhabitants.

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Duma's front page reports that a number of bank services are getting more expensive, including withdrawing money from ATMs and current account servicing. Clients of DSK Bank, Postbank, Central Cooperative Bank and Municipal Bank have already begun to pay the higher prices or will soon do so.

INFRASTRUCTURE

On the bTV morning show, former Regional Development Minister Grozdan Karadjov, who is now an MP of There Is Such a People, said that the new procurement conditions of the Road Infrastructure Agency, under the new management, opens the door wide to corruption. He said that during his tenure the procurements in road repair and construction were audited by the Bulgarian office of Transparency International. "Now all control has been eliminated because an external auditor would have established that the terms have a corruption potential," Karadjov said.

HOME AFFAIRS

Commenting on Ombudsman Diana Kovacheva's proposal to have a list of medicines that can lead to a false positive drug test drawn up, Head of the Bulgarian Drivers' Association Hristo Radkov told Trud that traffic police should start utilizing drug tests that do not just show the type of drug that is present within the driver's system but also the quantity of said drug. Radkov believes that introducing such tests would save drivers on prescription drugs, who would otherwise be unjustly accused of driving under the influence of illegal drugs.

Criminal lawyer Silvia Petkova told Trud that there is a huge number of false positive results in Bulgaria. She added that Germany utilizes drug tests manufactured by Drager, and the number of false positives there is significantly lower.

SOFIA-SKOPJE RELATIONS

An article in Duma comments on a statement made by North Macedonia's Minister of Foreign Affairs Bujar Osmani on August 24, when he said that "the treaties with the neighbours [...] are not part of the special segments of the negotiating framework for which a written notification and a vote by the EU Member States are required". The author of the article is concerned by that statement as well as the fact that later on it was repeated by US special envoy to the Western Balkans Gabriel Escobar, since Article 12 of North Macedonia's treaty with Bulgaria lists Macedonian history books that need to be edited. The article points out two other engagements that were agreed upon: to have North Macedonia declassify the 1945-1911 archives of the country's Intelligence Agency and to have North Macedonia apologize for the brutal repressions against Bulgarians. Duma criticizes Bulgaria's Minister of Foreign Affairs Mariya Gabriel for staying silent after Osmani and Escobar's statements.

EDUCATION

Trud reports on a bTV interview with Minister of Education and Science Galin Tzokov, who stated that he would not enforce any limits on the amount of homework that teachers are allowed to assign to their pupils. Tzokov's comments come after his Ministry had put up for public discussion a proposal to introduce an upper limit on the number of homework assignments for all pupils from grades one to 12. Another part of the proposal was to eliminate homework assignments over the holidays. The Minister assured teachers that he would never try to undermine their professional autonomy and added that the proposals were not about homework but rather about "specific individual or team tasks that pupils must perform after a class is over".

Telegraph quotes the same interview on bTV, saying that pupils will have required reading for the summer holidays, however, they will be assigned no written homework. The number of teamwork projects is expected to rise.

HEALTHCARE

Telegraph's front page features an interview with cardiologist Stamen Pishev, who warned that heart attacks have been getting more common among 30-odd-year-olds in recent years. Pishev explained this with unhealthy lifestyle: smoking, obesity, high cholesterol from bad diets, lack of exercise. According to data from the Bulgarian Stroke Organisation, mortality rate here from cerebrovascular diseases is 313.6 per 100,000 or nearly four times higher than the EU average of 79.5 per 100,000.

ENVIRONMENT

A report in the bTV morning show showed a group of volunteers with drones who take round-the-clock shifts to watch for wildfires in the forests near the southern town of Radomir, where several fires have been burning in the last week. "We had seven-plus fires in one week, and it was not even as warm as a month ago. I think they were deliberately started, and we are looking to catch the person doing it. We are trying to preserve our nature," said Martin Ivanov, one of the volunteers. The group uses high-speed drones that can fly between trees and have a long range. This allows the volunteers to respond quickly to alerts and reach the fire in seconds.