site.btaMedia Review: January 10

UPCOMING ROTATION OF PRIME MINISTERS

Mediapool.bg writes that two days before the start of the official talks between the partners in the ruling coalition on the rotation of prime ministers and the appointments in the regulators, GERB leader Boyko Borissov said: "We’ll be dealing with all regulators, constitutional judges, and the rotation." 
  
He was referring to the replacement of some 80 people in 16 regulatory, control and other bodies with expired mandates that are key to how the state will operate in the coming years.   
  
It is currently unknown on what basis all the upcoming appointments will take place. 
 
On Thursday morning is the first informal meeting where the leaders of GERB and Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria are expected to outline how each political force envisages the rotation.  

Also on the agenda is the question of whether a clear coalition agreement will eventually be signed between CC-DB and GERB to make these decisions, or whether the game of non-coalition will continue, with which CC imagines it is fooling its voters that it is not governing together with GERB. 

The refusal to sign a coalition agreement with GERB when the government was established, to date, brings some even more unpleasant complications, as the question of the presence of the Movement for Rights and Freedoms and Delyan Peevski will arise.  

On Tuesday, Boyko Borissov announced a package deal that includes the simultaneous distribution of ministerial posts, the anti-corruption commission, regulators and constitutional judges. 
 
The emergence of irresolvable conflicts could even lead to a delay in the rotation of the government, which threatens the very stability of the government, Mediapool's sources said.  
  
The ruling coalition needs some clear plan, because in the autumn there will be the appointments in the judiciary, the election of the prosecutor general and president of the Supreme Administrative Court. After that, there will be another rotation of the prime ministers if the judiciary does not undo the coalition. 

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Interviewed by Trud, political analyst Tsvetanka Andreeva discusses the upcoming rotation of prime ministers and makes political predictions for 2024. 
 
Asked whether there will be obstacles, Andreeva says: “There are always obstacles, but I think it is a very big challenge for the parties of the ruling majority and they will want it to pass smoothly - in institutions and in parliament. GERB-UDF have said that they will want a change of ministers, and it has been admitted by Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria that this will be at issue and ministers will be evaluated. This indicates that they will agree everything before the institutional rotation. I do not believe that the change of ministers will be an obstacle to the rotation because they managed to agree and appoint ministers in a much more difficult period when they had to explain why they were coming together in a coalition.

Andreeva thinks that President Rumen Radev will use his powers this time to intervene directly in the political process and that the rotation will be delayed by him. Also, by referring the constitutional amendments to the Constitutional Court, according to Andreeva, Radev is protecting not so much the public interest as his personal interest in terms of the power he abused in the last 2-3 years. Andreeva believes that 2024 it will be institutionally stable, and Bulgaria will have a regular government. “This is a healing process - not to go again to early parliamentary elections. There will be domestic and foreign policy challenges, but the healthier we are as institutions within the country, the better for society,” she says.

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS - CHALLENGE

MPs of There Is Such a People will submit a second motion to the Constitutional Court challenging the changes in the basic law, said Stanislav Balabanov, quoted by Trud. Speaking on Bulgarian National Radio, Balabanov said the motion will be supported by MPs from Vazrazhdane and probably the Bulgarian Socialist Party. 
  
TISP will not nominate candidates for the regulatory bodies, as it doesn’t want to "burn" its people. "I remember those coalition councils in that four-way coalition and Kiril Petkov's speech that the most qualified should be chosen, but even then they were negotiating behind the scenes. Kornelia Ninova was staying in the government because she was promised several regulators," Balabanov recalled.

Balabanov reiterated that the election of members of the regulators is flawed. "Andrey Gyurov as deputy governor of the central bank is against the law. According to the Trade Register, he is still part of an NGO and until recently he was on the executive board of Continue the Change, which is a violation. There is also a report by the Bulgarian National Bank Governing Council that confirms that Gyurov was illegally elected,” Balabanov said.  

"Kiril Petkov and Hristo Ivanov should be erased from the political space," Balabanov said in his comments on the work of the National Assembly in 2024.

Parliament’s recess ends on Wednesday and the legislature resumes work on Thursday.

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Speaking on Bulgarian National Television, former caretaker justice minister and legal affairs secretary to the President Krum Zarkov said that many of the changes in the Constitution are deeply wrong and dangerous.  
  
He cited as an example the list of people among whom a caretaker prime minister should be chosen as an example. 
  
"The basic principle of our democracy is that of separation of powers. The Speaker of a National Assembly in office at the time cannot combine the functions of Prime Minister. Or can the President of the National Audit Office - the body that audits government spending - head it?" 
 
According to Zarkov, the National Assembly, which will continue to function after the resignation of the regular government, will be engaged in an election campaign. He said that the parties in the National Assembly blame Rumen Radev for having done his job.

"The president appoints a caretaker cabinet when there is a parliamentary crisis, and the National Assembly cannot function."  
Zarkov believes that the issue of dual citizenship has been resolved too bluntly and important nuances are missing.  

"There is a difference between a Bulgarian citizen by birth and one by naturalization. There is a difference between dual citizenship when the second citizenship is acquired in an established democracy from which examples and practices can be drawn or not."  
  
The issue of passive and active suffrage should also be addressed, as we have not yet provided many Bulgarians abroad with a way to vote, Zarkov added.

If the Constitutional Court annuls the texts, they will not apply henceforth. If they have had any effect in the meantime, a legal case will arise, Zarkov explained. 

ECONOMY

Bulgaria is the EU member state where pensions are received for the shortest time. In the EU pensioners draw pensions between 15 and 25 years on average, while in Bulgaria men take their pensions for an average of 14 years and women for almost 19 years, writes Mediapool.bg, quoting Ivaylo Ivanov, governor of the National Social Insurance Institute.

Speaking on Bulgarian National Radio, he added that nearly 300,000 people are paying higher social security contributions from this month after the maximum social security income was raised to 3,750 leva on January 1. Only 20% are employed in the IT sector, the rest are public administration workers, employees in manufacturing and people in managerial positions in the private sector.

Ivanov commented that the maximum social security income should be determined by a formula annually with the growth of the average social security income.  

He said the higher maximum social security income would increase revenue to the public insurance budget by BGN 212 million this year, while the increase in the minimum wage would add an additional BGN 214 million. Overall, revenues are 1.7 billion more than last year. Expenditure is up by BGN 2.4 billion. An analysis of the pension system in Bulgaria should be ready by the end of this year.  

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Trud reports that in December 2023, job offers were down 19% from the previous month, referring to a job posting site. This is a drop 7,000 offers, bringing the total to about 30,000.  
Traditionally, there is a sharp drop in job postings in December because of the holidays. But compared to December of 2022, there are 9% more job offers.  
  
Compared to the previous month, the biggest drop in job offers was in trade and sales (1,520 fewer offers, 17% drop), manufacturing (25% drop) and hospitality and food services (13% drop). But compared to December of the previous year, almost all sectors have more offers. The exceptions are the marketing and advertising and IT sectors, which saw annual declines of 1% and 34% respectively.  
  
There has been a significant change in the IT sector - it held the second largest share of listings in December 2022 with 15%, and in the same month in 2023 it was in 6th place with 9% share. The biggest demand for workers is in trade (25% of offers), manufacturing (15%) and hospitality and food service (13%).  
  
The largest number of job offers is in Sofia - 45% of all, followed by Plovdiv (10%), Varna (8%), Burgas (4%), Ruse (3%) and Stara Zagora (3%). 

80th ANNIVERSARY OF HEAVIEST WW2 BOMBING OF SOFIA

Dnevnik.bg and Trud remember the 80th anniversary of the heaviest bombing of Sofia. It was carried out on January 10, 1944 during World War II.   
  
In August 1943, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt launched Operation Tidal Wave to neutralize Germany's allies, Romania and Bulgaria, and force them to surrender. From November 14 1943 to April 17 1944, 11 air raids were launched over Sofia. The bombing of January 10 was the first combined day-night attack on the city. Against 180 bombers, guarded by 100 fighters, the Sofia air defence sent only 39 fighters.

According to the official communique of the War Ministry, the Bulgarian Air Force lost one plane, 31 Allied planes were shot down. A total of 1,784 bombs were dropped over the city, 750 people were killed, 710 wounded, 93 public and 3,211 private buildings were destroyed, including the National Theatre.