site.btaMedia Review: September 19

HIGHLIGHTS

A drone with ammunition attached to it, that was found near Tyulenovo on the Northern Bulgarian Black Sea coast late on September 17 and disposed of the next day, is a major issue for most print and electronic media on Tuesday. The drone's origin has not been established and the papers have a lot of speculation on that but mostly agree that it was Ukrainian. They also report that the opposition in Parliament called for the Defence Minister's resignation over the handling of the drone incident. 

The start of nation-wide farmers' protest is also covered extensively.

Also on the front pages:

Trud leads with a story about a scam in which people have their accounts drained via online shops which ask them to fill in their credit card information. Shoppers are hooked with cheap offers - a PC for BGN 4 and a cell phone for USD 7 - on Facebook. It is not only customers who lose but also decent online businesses who suffer from the loss of consumers' confidence, the story says. 

Telegraf runs a front-page story about protected witnesses. It says that 20 police officers are assigned to protect one witness, taking shifts to protect them round the clock. "It is a serious resources that is used for protecting a single person instead of taking care of public order and security," says the deputy head of the Interior Ministry trade union, Ilia Kuzmanov.

24 Chasa leads with a story about new revisions to the Energy Act which it says will make it possible for some 1.5 million Bulgarians to claim energy aid. The total number of those eligible for aid will be five times the current 364,000. That will be possible thanks to a definition of "energy poverty" that the revisions introduce: anybody who after paying their bill for electricity, gas and heat goes under the poverty line (which is BGN 504 this year), shall be considered energy-poor. The definition has been formulated by a team including Bulgarian Academy of Sciences researchers, energy experts and NGOs.

Another front-page story in this paper says that in its struggle for traffic safety, the government will help purchase state-of-the-art equipment for 4 labs that will do alcohol and drugs tests for drivers and make them work round the clock - but the question is whether there will be lab workers for the project.

TYULENOVO DRONE

Trud writes in a front-page story that "the Ukrainian drone with a bomb remained on the cliffs near Tyulenovo for 13 hours". Defence Minister Todor Tagarev offered inadequate explanation about the incident before the parliamentary defence committee. The paper reached experts and they were positive that it was a Ukrainian-made drone. It quotes Dimiter Stavrev, an aviation expert, as saying that it was a UJ-22 Airborne drone that is used for attacks on Russian positions in Crimea. 

A front-page story in Telegraf quoted another expert, Ilia Nalbantov, as saying that "the killer drone could have been a Russian provocation". The paper also quotes Stavrev (the expert from the Trud story) that the drone had been in the water some 10 days. 

In another front-page story on the matter, the Socialists' Duma daily quote party leader Korneliya Ninova saying that Tagarev "must come down, immediately" over the drone incident. The paper also has a signed commentary on its first page, slamming the competent institutions for their reaction: "They thought the alert for the drone was a hoax and went into sweet slumber and criminal inaction until the first sunrays. Then the Minister said that 'such things are a weekly occurance'." The author goes on to mock the behaviour of police officers guarding the drone while waiting for the explosives experts, who were caught on video smoking near the ammunition, then poking at the drone fragments with no protective gear, and also the Defence Minister for saying that it would be hard to establish the origin of the drone as it was disposed of, and how he "keeps his fingers crossed for it to be a Russian drone", to use the author's words. 

24 Chasa writes that a website for aviation security says that it was a Ukrainian machine that was sent off its course by the Russians. The story has a map of the Black Sea coast of Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria with all drone incidents in September 2023. The paper also says that Romania is building concrete shelters near its border with Ukraine after a series of Russian drone fall incidents.

In the morning programme of the Bulgarian National Television (BNT), Sofia Security Forum Chair Yordan Bozhilov said that the Tyulenovo drone is likely Ukrainian and had a military aim and a target to destroy. Also there, former Interior Minister valentin Radev said that the target was not in Bulgaria and that the drone accidentally ended up in Bulgarian territory.

PROTESTS OF FARMERS, COAL MINERS

The Mediapool.bg e-zine says that for the second day in a row, farmers are protesting against the lifting of the ban on grain imports from Ukraine. About 600 tractors from all over the country are expected to gather at the Sofia entry roads. At least for now, heavy machinery will not block the city centre, the story says.

Trud writes that after the farmers' protests which started Monday, miners will follow suit. Farmers with hundreds of tractors and farming machines joined the protest. In another story, this daily quotes Hungarian President Viktor Orban as saying in an interview on Kossuth Radio that the Ukrainian grain deal is one big scam as it is not really Ukrainian but is grown on land that the US have likely owned for long years. Also, he says that people are being lied to about the Ukrainian grain as it never reaches Africa. 

In its Voices column (reproducing social media posts), the paper quotes MEP Alexander Yordanov as saying that "the truth is that we are allowing Ukrainian grain exports to help Ukraine in the war". 

Dnevnik.bg writes that two protests will block central Sofia Tuesday and Wednesday. The protest of grain farmers and their supporters from other agro-sectors, initially announced for Tuesday, was postponed for Wednesday. On Tuesday, however, coal miners, led by the two largest trade unions - the Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) and Podkrepa - will protest in front of the government offices. While the protest of the grain producers was prompted by the government's decision not to ask for an extension of the ban on Ukrainian grain imports, the protest of the coal mining unions has no specific reason and was announced Monday after it became clear that farmers would protest in Sofia at the same time. The unions said that thousands of miners would arrive in the centre of the capital at noon. Late on Monday, however, the grain growers decided to postpone their "tractor march" until Wednesday, Dnevnik reports.

A comment in Dnevnik says: "Barely past its first 100 days in office, the Nikolay Denkov Cabinet gets its first real test this week: grain growers started a national protest, energy workers plan to pour into Sofia on September 19, and the Vazrazhdane party will rally in front of Parliament a couple of days later. They seem to have conspired to be warming up for the local elections this autumn, and provocations to clashes seem inevitable. These protests are different from the recent manifestations of civil discontent over the poor traffic safety records or a brutal murder, or a closed municipal hospital, bad roads or a public hospital director behaving like a feudal lord. These are political protests and some of them anti-European in nature. And to make them more convincing, the coverage of grain growers' riots is paired with reports in some media saying that Ukrainian grain is radioactive, 'because of the Chernobyl accident', that it is genetically modified and is only good for animal feed. Since May 2022, the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency has inspected 575 shipments from Ukraine to Bulgaria and found neither violations of standards nor harmful goods. And some sunflower samples showed higher fat content than that of Bulgarian-grown sunflower. Since 2016, the EU has applied a comprehensive free trade agreement to Ukraine and Moldova, which means that products must comply with the EU rules and requirements." The comment also says that the protesting grain-growers are "funded by the EU but loyal to the Kremlin".

In a Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) interview, Boyko Sinapov, chairman of United Bulgarian Livestock Breeders, which is part of the farmers' protest said: "The farming industry has finally united. The livestock sector is years behind its time, the Bulgarian livestock farmer is not allowed to be competitive on the Bulgarian market. We inundated with imported poor quality produce. This has to stop! […] No one controls Ukrainian imports and they enjoy special treatment by the authorities: they are not checked and not controlled. Ukrainian grain is treated with various chemicals that are banned in the EU and when we feed our animals with this grain we poison our nation."

On BNT, Bulgarian Agrarian Chamber Executive Director Svetlana Boyanova says it is a misconception that the protests are staged only by grain farmers and have been prompted by the lifting of the ban on Ukrainian agricultural produce. "It is about problems across the agricutlrual sector: fruit and vegetables, honey and bee keeping, vineyards and animal husbandry. We are dealing with serious manipulation here."

Also on BNT, Yordan Terziev MP of CC-DB said that government's motivation is "to solve the problems of both grain producers and every citizen". He also said that no decision should affect adversely the price of bread, milk, meat and all other products. 

Telegraf writes that hundreds of tractors are on their way to Sofia after blocking key transport junctions across the country on Monday. Some Borislav Petkov told Telegraf that their destination is the government headquarters. The paper also says that Ukraine threatens to sue Poland, Hungary and Slovakia over the grain ban, and quotes the European Commission as saying that no more restrictions on Ukrainian agricultural produce are necessary. 

Duma quotes Korneliya Ninova as saying that the protest has the potential to destabilize the government. The paper reports in detail how the first day of protests went, and quotes protestors complaining of meticulous police checks aiming to slow then down. The paper quotes George Tuka, a former Ukrainian deputy minister for the temporarily occupied territories, who said on a Ukrainian TV programme that the ban on Ukrainian agricultural exports in some EU countries is justified. He is quoted as saying that "it is not a big secret that the Ukrainian exports lead to dumping".

24 Chasa writes of a new plan for talks in which the protesting farmers will be asked to agree to quotas for Ukrainian agricultural exports. What is known at this stage is that the protests continue as planned and the tractors are coming to Sofia.

Next to this story is another one about the biggest recipients of EU farm subsidies in Bulgaria: some 20 companies all of which grow grain and have claimed a total of over BGN 60 million in subsidies. The figures are based on the SEBRA platform registers all government payments. It shows that the top three recipients are Svetlozar Dichevski with BGN 269 million subsidies, Kiril Ivanov with BGN 78 million and Krassimir Milkov with BGN 46 million. "The list with the biggest beneficiaries of direct subsidies in Bulgaria has remained unchanged for years. It includes a number of connected companies which lead to the same owners, most of them in the grain growing businesses," the story says. It adds that the club of the Big 20 was recently joined by some large livestock farmers who own or rent big land for pastures or feed production.

On BNT, CITUB chief economist Lyuboslav Kostov explains that the energy workers will be protesting in Sofia Tuesday to express their discontent over the planned sweeping decarbonization and the failure of the government to stand by its promise to renegotiate the decarbonization timeframe with the European Commission.

On bTV, three analysts discussed the potential of the farmers' protests to undermine the government. With much sarcasm, political analyst Georgi Harizanov calls the power-holders "political geniuses" for proposing lifting the ban on Ukrainian imports two days before the EC ban expired. He said that was very amateurish and showed a lack of awareness of public attitudes. Economist Evgenii Kanev said that the whole thing with the protests was caused by producers having large quantities of sunflower from last year which that have not sold because their asking price is too high. "The best recipe for political longevity and staying 12 years on power is to do as the farmers want. But if I want to be a real statesman, I cannot allow such market disturbances in which processors will suffer. Employment will suffer, the GDP will suffer, inflation will stay high and budget revenues smaller than planned. Statesmanly measures are unpopular," he said. Social analyst Andrey Raichev said the government is doing exactly what all textbooks say it should not be doing. Their first position was that we have to help the brotherly Ukrainian people and we will scarify our own people and import grain. Then they said that grain producers are terrorists and thieves. After that, they said that there is no problem and that we have fooled Ukraine and will use various procedures to continue to fool them.

POLITICS

Trud carries a two-page interview with Sofia mayoral candidate Vili Lilkov, the former co-founder and ranking member of Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB), who was nominated by the Blue Sofia coalition for the mayor's race in the Bulgarian capital in defiance of the DSB decision to back Vassil Terziev, the candidate of the Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) coalition. Lilkov says that he experts firm support from UDF and DSB in the elections and is running on a strong anti-communist platform. "I rely on Sofianites who remember why they went in the street to protest in 1989 [when the totalitarian regime fell]," says he. He also promises to rid the city of communist symbols when he becomes mayor.

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Telegraf writes of a looming rift between GERB-UDF and CC-DB over the idea of DB co-leade Atanas Atanassov for a merger of the civilian and military intelligence. GERB leader Boyko Borissov said on Monday that he is not supportive of the proposed merger.

24 Chasa also has the story about Borissov rejecting Atanassov's idea. 

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Duma has an interview with political scientist Parvan Simeonov which is focused on where the parties in the "government assemblage" stand and what their strategies are ahead of the local elections on October 29. He argues that Continue the Change are being used as "the lightning rod" in the "assemblage" and that GERB, DB and even the Movement for Rights and Freedoms have an interest to put them in the fore so they get "worn out" first. Simeonov believes that CC-DB have strong chances of winning the mayoral elections in Sofia and it would be a grave loss if they don’t. He also says that there may be some kind of a deal between CC-DB and GERB-UDF in which the latter will try to gain something from a potential loss. He admits, though, that surprises are always possible. 

ECONOMY

In a 24 Chasa article, economist Luchezar Bogdanov of the Institute of Market Economics, explains why "the Bulgarian inflation has proven so resilient". Bulgaria has had a mix of pension raise, one of the fastest pace of wage increase and very active bank lending, he says.

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Mediapool reports that energy expert Boyko Nitsov, who has been pushing for years for reducing Bulgaria's dependence on Russian energy sources, was picked Monday as the state's representative on the Supervisory Board of Lukoil Neftochim Burgas oil refinery. He was chosen in a competition organized by the Energy Ministry. The state's representative on the Supervisory Board of Lukoil Neftochim exercises the powers of the "golden share" that the government has in the oil refinery. He can initiate a general meeting of shareholders on raising or reducing the capital, changing the articles of association and issuing bonds. The golden share also allows blocking the decisions of the general meeting, but in principle the government cannot independently conduct policy in the refinery unless it appoints its own special manager.

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Trud reports that hackers recently attacked Bulgarian banks. The target was their online communication with customers. The story quotes knowledgeable sources from the banking sector. The Russian hacker group No name bragged on Telegram about the hack, saying that they were retaliating for the lifting of the Bulgarian ban on Ukrainian agricultural exports.

In a full-page unsigned article, Trud writes that "no other country has surrendered fully to the Green NGOs like Bulgaria has". The headline says that the Cherno More [Black Sea] Motorway project "is becoming a victim of the Natura 2000 network of protected areas". All seven possible routes for the motorway have been rejected by the Environment Ministry, the story goes. It also says that with the effective administrative and environmental procedures, the motorway can be built in 2035 at the earliest.

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Telegraf has an interview with atomic energy expert Prof. Yanko Yanev who deplores the lack of a nuclear energy strategy in Bulgaria. He also says that no other country first orders and then sells nuclear reactors. He is positive that Bulgaria needs new nuclear energy capacity and says that transparency is a fundamental principle in the nuclear energy industry. 

***

Duma writes that the power-holders are preparing legislative changes whereby a patent tax will replace the corporate income tax for restaurant businesses. How much the new tax will be will depend on the size of the restaurant, said National Revenue Agency chief Rumen Spetsov. He told of numerous audits in hotels and restaurants in resorts this past summer and complained that the fines are too insignificant against the scale of the violations that have been established. He is further quoted as saying that the Lukoil Neftochim oil refinery has only paid BGN 89 in taxes on their excess profit, which is way less than the BGN 600 million that the caretaker government of Galab Donev said was expected. 

JUDICIAL REFORM

In a BNR interview, Justice Minister Atanas Slavov dwells on the power-holders' ideas for constitutional changes. "Closing the window of time during which Bulgaria is without Parliament, plus setting in place a caretaker government format that would require dialogue with the political parties in Parliament, may be the point where the various visions for reforming the model will diverge. Ensuring gap-free parliamentary tenures means making sure there is no gap of two or three months between Parliements. During time of crises, it will be important to have a Parliament to react and that is impossible when Parliament is dissolved." He further argued that some constitutional standards are needed for curtailing the President's discretion and that the proposal to eliminate the presidential decrees for the appointment of the three top magistrates (the prosecutor general and the presidents of the Supreme Court of Cassation and the Supreme Administrative Court) will be put to a serious debate but things may be left as they are just as well because "the presidential decrees lend stronger legitimacy to the process". In the area of national security, defence and foreign relations, the President has key powers and having shared competence with the government is the best solution.  

HEALTH CARE

Mediapool quotes Deputy Health Minister Mihail Okoliiski as saying that incidents in medical establishments in Bulgaria are swept under the carpet instead of being registered to make it possible to take measures to avoid more incidents in the future. Okoliiski was speaking during a discussion on the occasion of the World Patient Safety Day, September 17. "Making the voice of patients heard determines whether the healthcare system is sensitive to their needs. It is good practice to involve patient organizations in health policy decisions. But this is not yet happening in the most effective way in Bulgaria. Sometimes authentic patient organizations that speak with the voices of their members are not involved, but those that represent interests alien to patients," he said.