site.btaMedia Review: November 13

POLITICS - LOCAL ELECTIONS

The Monday oath-taking ceremony of Sofia’s newly elected Mayor Vassil Terziev (from Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria and  Save Sofia), and the city’s new municipal council is covered by the media. 

BNT: The Municipal Council is expected to elect its chair, with Boris Bonev of CC-DB and Save Sofia being the likely nomination.  Seven political formations are part of the new Sofia Municipal Council. The largest number of councillors - 23 - are from CC-DB. GERB - UDF have 14. BSP for Bulgaria - nine, Vazrazhdane - eight, KOD and There Is Such a People each have three representatives and VMRO - BND - one. The new municipal councils of Varna, Ruse and Vidin will also hold their first meeting.

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Mediapool leads with a story about the renovations in central Sofia. The capital's city centre has been undergoing renovations for years and is still not ready. The deadlines for the renovation of the area around the National Assembly, the Military Club, the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Shishman Street and the 6th of September Street have long expired. However, the work is not yet finished. Because of the delay, the builders executing the projects should be fined. The final amount of the sanctions is currently unclear, but it will be in the millions of leva.

Both the incumbent mayor of Sofia Yordanka Fandakova and the newly elected Vassil Terziev confirm the backlog. Fandakova explained that Terziev's team will have to calculate and impose the penalties as this happens upon completion of the construction. Terziev in turn pointed out that determining the penalties on these contracts will be one of his urgent tasks once he takes office. He officially takes over as mayor Monday.

The penalties can be up to 30% of the value of the contracts. According to the contracts with the builders, the penalty for delay is 30% of the value of the delayed stage of the project.

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Dnevnik runs a recap on outgoing Sofia Mayor Yordanka Fandakova’s terms in office, including her  accomplishments and shortcomings.   

ECONOMY 

Obviously the derogation does not play its role, Vladislav Panev from CC-DB told BNR. "The derogation was adopted so that the [Lukoil oil] refinery could gradually switch to processing non-Russian oil. However, the share of Russian oil became over 90% for purely economic reasons. The derogation is not fulfilling its role so far," he explained. 

"The State has not yet come to grips with this task, which is costing billions," Panev said, adding that the derogation has not been managed well.

On the legislative changes, which provide for a smooth transition to another type of oil, Panev said it was "probanly too gradual". The time for the refinery to switch to other fuels was quite enough, the CC-DB lawmaker said.

He said calculations showed that if the price difference between Russian and other oil was billions a year, it meant hundreds of millions every month as "a gift to Lukoil".

It is best for the parliamentary majority to sit down at the table and clean up populism, Vladislav Panev stressed on the upcoming review of the 2024 budget and the controversy with GERB on this topic.

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Trud: The minimum pension is set to become BGN 580.57 leva from July 1, 2024, according to the estimates of the Ministry of Finance for next year's budget. The pensions are scheduled to be increased from July 1, 2024, according to the current "Swiss rule" by 50% of inflation and 50% of the growth of the average social security income for the current year. According to the Finance Ministry's updated projections, pensions will be raised by 11% next year and the minimum pension will reach BGN 580.57 from July 1, 2024.  

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24 Chasa: The official statistics of the traffic police on passenger car registrations in Bulgaria show a decline in imports of vehicles over 10 years old. In 5 years sales of cars over 10 years old have fallen by 19 142 units, given that the total registrations have dropped by around 10,000 in the first 10 months of this year, compared to 2019.  

New car sales are already exceeding the levels of the strong pre-COVID year of 2019. For the first 10 months of the year, 31,710 units were sold in Bulgaria, compared to 30,006 for the same period 5 years ago. There is also a huge increase in imports relatively new passenger cars up to 5 years old, compared to 2019. By November 1, 14,813 such vehicles were registered in the country, up from 9,732 five years ago, which translates into an increase of about 50%. Vehicles between 5 and 10 years old remain more or less at the same level as before. The biggest increase is in brand new car sales - 31,710 now compared to 24,869 last year, or almost 7,000 more. That's a full 27.5 %increase. The figures would have looked even better in favour of new and non-polluting cars if taxes were aligned with this. 

Bulgaria is among the countries with the lowest car taxes, but while most countries have oriented their car tax systems towards incentives for low and even zero emission cars, Bulgaria is the only one in Europe completely devoid of incentives. There is no acquisition tax, no bonuses for buying electric cars or plug-in hybrids.

DEFENCE - ARMY - VACANCIES 

There are about 6000 vacancies in the Bulgarian Army. The reasons for this are the COVID-19 pandemic and disinformation, said Defence Minister Todor Tagarev told bTV. 

"COVID-19 had a serious impact on taking on this type of duties, while the gap between 2022 and 2023 can be attributed to the disinformation campaign against the us, the Government and the servicepersons - 'don't go there because they will send you to Ukraine to fight'. This campaign is not yet over and it involved parliamentary political parties. They themselves are responsible for the fact the Army is not properly staffed," Tagarev said. 

ILLEGAL MIGRATION 

bTV reports on the illegal migrants crossing into and out of Bulgaria. The Ministry of Interior has reported increased migrant pressure at the borders. Nearly 170,000 illegal border crossing attempts have been reported since the beginning of this year along the border with Turkiye, which is 24% more than last year. After crossing the border, 1,300 people have been detained. Most of them are citizens of Syria, Morocco and Afghanistan. In the border villages, the routes of migrants are known by heart. The groups hide in ravines that are close to the road, and the forests around the southeastern villages of Golyam Dervent, Golyamo Sharkovo, Iglika, Sitovo, Krainovo, Strandzha give shelter to hundreds of illegals that people see every day. Interviewed locals share their experiences coming across the migrants, many of whom are in need of clothes, warm food and healthcare, which often times locals give them before calling the border police to pick them up. Medical professionals in nearby hospitals also feel the increased migrant pressure. The Yambol hospital has examined 130 migrants after incidents with police chases in the last nine months. Over 40 of them had to be hospitalized. "If by the end of spring they were coming to us in a state of severe dehydration and exhaustion, the interesting thing was that in the summer months they were with severe traumatic injuries. What is specific about incidents with migrants is that in a short time a huge number of injured are transported to the emergency room and this poses huge difficulties for the medical teams on duty," said Dr. Valentin Valchev, deputy director of the Yambol hospital.

According to Border Police statistics, since the beginning of the year a total of 319 pre-trial proceedings have been initiated for human trafficking.