site.btaMedia Review: October 10

HIGHLIGHTS

24 Chasa leads with a story saying that Bulgaria and Romania would bring down their shared border if they are not admitted to the border-free Schengen area within 60 days. That is the Plan B for the two countries, which transpired during a Bulgaria-Greece-Romania prime ministerial in the Euxinograd Residence on the northern Bulgarian Black Sea coast on October 9. Also, Sofia and Bucharest are likely to sue Austria and the Netherlands for standing in the way of their Schengen entry, the story says.

Of the print media, only Duma has the Israel – Hamas conflict on its front page and it writes about the imposition of a total blockade of the Gaza Strip by Israel. “People were left without electricity, food, fuel and medicines,” says the subheading. The paper also quotes Socialist leader Kornelia Ninova as saying that her party condemns the attack on Israel and that the conflict will impact the global economy and energy markets. She also said that “the President [Rumen Radev] overlooked the war in Ukraine and is not taking any measures now either”. She insists that the President needs to convoke the Constultative Council on National Security as matter of emergency.

Trud leads with a story saying that Bulgarians want a four-day workweek. They would even accept a 10-hour work day if that would cut short their week in the office. Only 10% are happy working five days. That conclusion is based on a poll among 2,000 respondents. Trud has this article and several others on labour and employment on an inside page. Some of the other headlines: 9% of job advertisements are for remote work; The National Council for Tripartite Cooperation backs Labour Code revisions that guarantee workers’ right to disconnect; Bulgarians work harder than people in the richer countries while employers work less.

Duma also has the story about the attitudes to a shorter workweek.

Telegraf leads with plans for new strategies for the water sector. The story says that 400,000 people have their water supply rationed. 

MIDDLE EAST 

All media outlets on Tuesday report the latest developments in the Middle East, the Israeli blockade on Gaza and the largest ever mobilization of Israeli reservists. The Middle East also heavily dominated the morning programmes of the national televisions on Tuesday.

24 Chasa has comments by two Bulgarian analysts. Vladimir Chukov believes that “somebody is seeking to block the bold new corridor to Europe, which threatens the China-Russia one”. The “bold new corridor” is the India-Middle East-Europe-Economic Corridor (IMEC) which was announced on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in New Delhi in September. In another analysis, journalist and analyst Ivan Garelov writes that “Gaza may be just the beginning” and that “other conflict hotspots will likely flare up as Putin seems to be determined to use them to tire the US”. 

Duma reproduces a Deutsche Welle story saying that Hamas declared a war on Israel. The paper also quotes Israeli military officials who said the Hamas surprise attack was “Israel’s Pearl Harbor”. 

In a Telegraph interview, Iraqi-born Bulgarian-based Middle East journalist and analyst Mohamed Halaf says that Gaza is not going to become a state and the war will likely last a month, two or even three. He says that there were both internal and external factors that brought about the Hamas attack; that thousands of Hamas fighters have trained in Iranian camps in Syria; and that an Israel - Saudi Arabia rapprochement was against Iran’s interests.

Halaf also spoke in the morning show of Bulgarian National Television (BNT). He said that nothing in the past year suggested that there would be such a military operation against Israel. “There was an agreement between Hamas and the Netanyahu government, brokered by Qatar and Egypt, for a long ceasefire and an Israeli investment of USD 1 billion to improve infrastructure, create jobs and allow 100,000 Palestinians into Israel to work. At the same time, Hamas, with Israel's consent, receives USD 15 million a month from Qatar in order to meet the government needs," he added. He also said that this has been Hamas' sixth war against Israel, in which it follows the agenda of Iran, which has problems with the US, the EU and the world community.

In the bTV morning programme, former Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nadezhda Neynski said that she sees an attempt at imposing “a new world order in the Middle East and not only”. She said: “What I have been seeing in the past months and years speaks of an attempt at imposing a new world order. Russia started a large-scale war – the biggest after the end of WWII. India has embraced nationalism; Israel saw the coming to power to of the most conservative government; and China is becoming increasingly aggressive to Taiwan.”

On Nova TV, Radan Kanev, a Bulgarian member of the European Parliament, said that “what is happening in Israel is a monstrous act of terrorism on a massive scale, characterized by particular cruelty and brutality by Hamas”. He is adamant that the Hamas attack was aimed against the peace efforts in the Middle East and the rapprochement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. He believes that “it will take delicate diplomatic moves to overcome the hostage crisis”. 

In an interview with Bulgarian singer Vasko “Bazilio” Vassilev, the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) offers a first-person account of the Hamas attack on Israel. He went to Israel in late September planning to spend a month there working and travelling. He was among 150 Bulgarians and citizens of other countries who were flown to Bulgaria in the past couple of days on two rescue flights.

Vassilev was also interviewed by Nova TV.

Bulgarian National Television, too, had interviews with people in Israel. One of them is Lior Katz, who told of the horror of the Hamas assaults, abductions and killings. Daniela Chopova said from Tel Aviv that the Bulgarian Embassy in Israel is making lists of people willing to leave Israel and priority is given to those who are Bulgarian citizens only. People with dual Bulgarian and Isreali citizenship can leave using a regular commercial flight.

bTV had an interview with a young Bulgarian-German woman, Neli Kukova, who traveled solo to Israel a week ago and then went to visit Palestina, where she was trapped by the hostilities for days. She said that the Bulgarian Embassy provided plenty of information for Bulgarians in Israel and nothing for Bulgarians in Palestina. Kukova has managed to reach Jordan with the help of the German Embassy in Ramallah. 

Israeli Deputy Chief of Mission in Sofia Naama Levy said on BNT that her country is fighting a war against terrorists – not against the people of Palestina. She said this is not the first time that Israeli citizens have been held captive in Gaza, but what is happening now is unprecedented. The government is committed to bringing every single one of those kidnapped or disappeared back home. Both the government and the military are preparing for a long military operation in Gaza, Levy said.

BNR reports an address by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy where he said that “very clear information” is available that Russia is interested in triggering a war in the Middle East, “so that a new source of pain and suffering could undermine world unity, increase discord and contradictions, and thus help Russia destroy freedom in Europe”. “We see Russian propagandists gloating,” Zelenskyy said quoted by BNR.

International politics analyst Tsvetan Krastev told BNR that if Israel invades Gaza, Iran’s response will be “more than diplomatic”. He believes that Hamas will seek coordination and support from other military groupings in the region. “Both sides lose from the worsening conflict. Both countries are departing from a peaceful solution,” he said. He argued that the clashes are a huge tragedy both for Israel and Palestina.

Trud carries an analysts by its own frequent contributor Rumen Mihaylov, titled “Hamas, Israel, Russia, Ukraine: points of intersection”. He writes that “Zelenskyy pointed a finger at Moscow as the instigator of the Hamas attack but for West European analysts the Kremlin has no interest to undermine Tel Aviv”. He also points out that Israel has never taken an open stance on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Dnevnik.bg quotes Prime Minister Denkov as saying during a Q&A session on social media that Bulgaria should not revisit its plan to move away from Russian oil as of October 2024 with a view of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

POLITICS

In another story on the Euxinograd meeting, 24 Chasa says that Sofia, Athens and Bucharest agreed to step up infrastructure projects which have been shelved for years. The talks were focused on the completion of the transport corridor from Kavala to Constanta via Alexandroupolis, Burgas and Varna. The project commenced before the COVID pandemic and also included Serbia as then Prime Minister Boyko Borissov insisted for that, but Belgrade was not invited to Euxinograd, the story says. A project that is a matter of emergency for Bulgaria, is building an oil pipeline from Alexandroupolis to Burgas, where Bulgaria has the Lukoil Neftochim Burgas oil refinery. The pipeline is expected to bring to the refinery non-Russian oil, which it will need when it abandons Russian oil on October 1, 2024. 

As it covers the Prime Minister’s social media Q&A session with Bulgarian people on Tuesday, Dnevnik.bg says that most questions were about wages but some people also asked him whether and when his Cabinet will come down; what measures the Cabinet is taking against Russian propaganda; and what inhouse contract award procedures will be abandoned.

ECONOMY

24 Chasa looks into detail at a poll by the Association of Industrial Capital in Bulgaria which found that 52% of businesses in Bulgaria plan layoffs in 2024 and only 29% intend to keep all their workers. One in two employers believe they will have to raise wages next year and three out of four plan to downscale their investments.

Trud carries an interview with Ivan Markov, a former CEO of the Maritza East mines, with the headline quoting him as saying that phasing out the coal plants would result in power rationing. The interview starts on the front page and continues on two inside pages. Markov argues that “the European Green Deal was really a deplorable deal that lacked sound scientific reasoning and was a purely political and administrative decision”. 

A story in Capital.bg says that for the second year in a row the state-owned Avtomagistrali tops of the ranking of Bulgarian construction companies, and two more state-owned companies are in the top 15. Most of the revenues of the sector leaders are again from public procurement, but the share of private investment is growing. The shortage of labour is painful in the building construction segment.

In Trud, economist Rumen Gamabinov, who sits on the President’s Strategic Council, says that the government may try to take out new debt before the end of this year. He points out that the budget revenues are falling short of the target and that the slowdown in the eurozone economy will impact adversely the Bulgarian export.

PROTESTS

Trud reports that the trade unions of university faculty are ready for protests over a 20% pay raise that they were promised but never got. They have written to the Prime Minister about it. The professors’ options are a petition, a meeting with the power-holders or a strike. 

Duma also has the story about university professors’ protests.

BNT has a report about coal miners and energy workers continuing the blockade of the Passage of the Republic in the Balkan Range for a 12th day. They protest against the phasing out of coal and against the just transition plans that the government has recently submitted to Brussels. They are also preparing a nationwide protest on Thursday.

HEALTH CARE

Trud writes on its front page that “they are fanning out a new COVID scare” (with a subheading saying that the Alliance for Worthy Living insists that prosecutors should look into fear-mongering over COVID; and that Bulgaria has spent BGN 570 million for COVID vaccines, some of which were not used and had to be discarded). The story brings back into circulation infectious diseases specialist Atanas Mangurov, who has been an outspoken opponent of COVID vaccines, and quotes him as saying that the vaccines have “a poor safety profile”. 

24 Chasa has a full page of COVID-related stories. One says that 19,321 Bulgarians got COVID shots in the past 12 days, which is as many as in the past 12 months. Another says in the headline that an increased rate of infections has forced schools to reinstate strict monitoring (checking students’ throats and taking their temperature).

BNR fact-checks social media posts alleging that Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov had issued a warning about an impending lockdown and a mask mandate for more than 1,000 coronavirus infections per day. BNR asked the Health Ministry about that and they categorically denied the allegations. The Ministry explained that Bulgaria has a National Operational Plan for COVID-19 which clearly describes the protocols and what measures are to be taken for what infection rates.

SOCIETY

24 Chasa has a full-page interview with Prof. Vihra Milanova, head of the Psychiatric Clinic of Sofia’s Alexandrovska Hospital. The headline quotes her as saying that people with mental conditions are stigmatized in Bulgaria, leading to isolation and shame, as well as abuse and violence. She says that modern psychiatric care includes outpatient services but deinstitutionalization is only possible when there is a well-developed network of psycho-social services. In Bulgaria, psychiatric patients, in or out of hospital, are often abused and even become victims of property frauds, the professor says.

Capital.bg has a story on the aftermath of deadly floods in the southern Bulgarian coastal town of Tsarevo in September. “Exactly a month after four people died in Tsarevo amid heavy rains in early September, which showed the flaws in the functioning of the local authorities, everything is ‘back to normal’ in the town. And the violations, and the schemes, and the general conclusion that ‘everything complied with the law’", the story says as it reports the findings of checks after the floods and of what may have made them so devastating.

THE WORLD

Trud has a story about the German local elections and writes about “an election failure of the power-holders in Berlin”. 

The international page of Duma has stories on Armenia (Will the West Sacrifice Armenia?) and the Ukraine war (the targets of a possible new Russian offensive in Ukraine).

Duma also writes about Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban accusing the EC of creating an  Orwellian world. “Brussels is creating an Orwellian world in front of our eyes. They buy and supply weapons through the #EuropeanPeaceFacility. They want to control the media through the #MediaFreedomAct. We didn’t fight the communists to end up in 1984!” Orban wrote in an X post five days ago.