site.btaMedia Review: October 12

POLITICS

The first vote of no confidence in the Denkov cabinet enters Parliament on Thursday. The MPs are holding an extraordinary sitting to discuss the opposition's request, Trud reports.

Last week, Vazrazhdane, BSP, There Is Such a People and independent MP Radostin Vassilev submitted the request to Parliament. The motive is "the government's policy in the energy sector".

The call for resignation came against the backdrop of tensions in the sector over the territorial plans for the coal regions sent to Brussels and the subsequent protests by energy workers and miners.

Parliament's pre-election recess was thus interrupted. The first task of the MPs is to discuss the reasons for the vote, and the vote itself will take place at least 24 hours after the end of the debate.

For a no-confidence vote to be successful, it must garner at least 121 votes in favour. The formations that want a change of government have a total of 72 votes.

The partners in the government - GERB-UDF and MRF - have already said they will not support the request. Which suggests that the Denkov cabinet will pass the test.

-

This vote is part of the election campaign. The opposition tabled a vote of no confidence in order to extract dividends for itself, to improve its results in the local elections, political scientist Assoc. Prof. Milen Lyubenov told BNR. 

"From the very beginning GERB behaved as an internal opposition within the coalition. They try to transfer all the negatives to Continue the Change (CC) and Democratic Bulgaria (DB). But they themselves fell into this trap. GERB criticize the government because in reality, as in the beginning, they said that they are not responsible for it," Lyubenov said.

According to the political scientist, before the rotation there will not be any serious upheaval within the ruling majority. He does not expect a change of ministers by the end of the year.  

"There will be pressure depending on what the local elections results are. The rotation itself will entail changes in Cabinet - that should be clear. That is when GERB can push for greater participation in the Council of Ministers. This could lead to tensions with CC. But the math does not work out. GERB will not be able to force these changes without its current coalition partners."

By the end of the year, there are several important issues - changes to the Constitution, Schengen accession, and Budget 2024, Lyubenov noted.

-

Assoc. Prof. Petar Cholakov commented on BNT on a possible outcome where GERB do not support the government. In his words, this could work in GERB’s favour, but the likelihood of such a move at this moment is small. Rather, such a step could be taken after the local elections.

-

Krystian Szkwarek expressed the opinion that it would be a mistake on the part of GERB to overthrow the government now. If they do, it will only mobilize CC, he said.

*

A candidate for mayor of the southern town of Dupnitsa has been detained by police, the Central Election Commission says on its website, as quoted by 24 Chasa.

The arrest is in connection with a notification received from the Interior Ministry's Kyustendil Department that a signal from the Republic of Greece has been entered in the Schengen Information System that Bulgarian citizen Metodi Zaharinov is on an international wanted list. By law, registered candidates cannot be detained from the moment they register until the announcement of the election results without the permission of the CEC.

“We are going to submit a request to the court to keep him in custody,” Mariana Sirakova of the Kyustendil District Prosecutor's Office told BTA. She specified that the court will decide when the hearing will be scheduled.

In 2014, Zaharinov was sentenced to 6 years in prison in Greece for distributing counterfeit euro banknotes.

* 

For the fourteenth day, protests of miners and energy sector workers are blocking traffic junction points in Stara Zagora, the Trakia motorway, the cloverleaf in the direction of Stara Zagora and in the direction of Haskovo, and the Pass of the Republic.

The main demand of the protesters now is the withdrawal of the territorial just transition plans and new negotiations on the points of the agreement.

On Thursday, the miners and energy workers will also take to the streets in a nationwide protest in defence of their demands, scheduled for 6 pm.

*

Minister of Foreign Affairs Mariya Gabriel will receive French Secretary of State for European Affairs Laurence Boone, BNR reports.

The two officials are expected to discuss a wide range of issues of mutual interest and topical issues on the international agenda, such as the war in Ukraine, the Hamas attacks on Israel, the enlargement of the European Union and North Macedonia, among others.

SECURITY 

A meeting of the Presiding Body of Parliament will be held at 11 am, 24 Chasa reports. National Assembly Chair Rosen Zhelyazkov and the floor leaders will take part in it. Prime Minister Nikolay Denkov, Deputy Prime Minister Mariya Gabriel, Defence Minister Todor Tagarev, Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov, Interior Ministry Secretary General Zhivko Kotsev and the heads of the security services will also be invited to attend. The theme of the meeting is national security in the context of the war against Israel and the war in Ukraine.

Bulgaria will offer humanitarian aid to Israel, Prime Minister Denkov said a few days ago. According to him, the situation in Israel should be monitored very carefully because there is a potential for a very serious escalation.

On Wednesday, President Rumen Radev held a consultative meeting on the risks and threats to national security as a result of the current conflicts and measures to minimise them.

-

“As a result of the reports presented by the services and ministries, we united around the opinion that there is currently no direct threat to the national security of the country. However, the risk prevention measures identified by the government remain in place,” President Rumen Radev said after a consultative meeting on the risks and threats to national security that he organized, Dnevnik reports.

On Thursday, Radev said that there has been a deterioration of the security environment in Bulgaria because of the conflict in Israel, as well as because of the war in Ukraine, the conflicts in Syria, the South Caucasus and the Western Balkans. "One of the biggest risks is members of terrorist organizations infiltrating this country amid the expected migrant pressure," Radev noted.

-

This country is facing serious security problems that need to be addressed, Milen Ivanov, former deputy rector of the Academy of the Ministry of Interior, told Nova TV. He clarified that these are the lack of personnel and technology, which were discussed publicly once again during the meeting with the President. 

"Technologically, we are lagging years behind developed countries. Bulgaria lacks the technology of Open Source Intelligence, there is no OSINT centre. We don't have a single centre to train officers. Training is encapsulated. Lack of literacy in the civil service is the main reason," Ivanov added.

*

More than 2,800,000 alerts were sent to 112 in the first nine months of the year. There has been an 11% drop in false alerts, Marina Velinova, Director of the National Emergency Call System, told BNR.

The most frequent calls with false information were bomb threats to schools. However, the system now has the means to detect the sender of a signal within a radius of several metres.

The largest number of alerts are received by the police - over 42%, followed by those for emergency services - around 39%, and only around 4% of alerts are directed to the fire service.

From 2021 onwards, the national 112 system has a new functionality - a service of the new smartphone operating systems that improves the accuracy of localization up to 4,000 times. When a call is made to 112 from a smartphone, the phone automatically activates its location service and sends the information, Velinova explained.

*

The situation in Israel remains extremely tense, which is why the Ministry of Foreign Affairs advises Bulgarian citizens to refrain from travelling to Israel, Trud reports.

The Foreign Ministry once again urges Bulgarian citizens who are there to register at the embassy, whether they wish to leave Israel immediately or not.

The MFA and the Embassy in Tel Aviv are available to provide further assistance as required, within their capabilities.

CULTURE

BNR reports that the second edition of the "Past Not Past" festival will take place on October 12-15. Socialism and the transition years will be presented through the means of different arts: literature, photography, music, cinema and visual arts. Beloved musician Kiril Marichkov and novelist Georgi Gospodinov will be special guests of the festival.

“We look to the past and to history by giving way to arts that could interpret and deal with this past, providing a different point of view from the dry-historical one", explained Vesela Nozharova, curator of the forum.

*

An unusual concert surprised the residents of Sofia’s neigbourhood of Hristo Botev, BNT reports. It was held in the courtyard of 94th School “Dimitar Strashimirov” and featured Roma and Norwegian jazz musicians. The event was the closing one for the Music Art Tabor project, which during the summer months visits different Roma neighborhoods in the country.

The Music Art Tabor project is an initiative of the association IME, Bulgaria, in partnership with the Norwegian Society of Composers and Lyricists (NOPA) – to include Roma communities in the dynamics of contemporary artistic life and open the borders between professionals and amateurs in experimental art spaces, the project’s website says.

Music Art Tabor is implemented in 2022-2024 with the support of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway under the EEA Financial Mechanism and will contribute to improving access to arts and culture for disadvantaged and ethnic minority youth, a key priority of the programme for cultural entrepreneurship, heritage and collaboration.