site.btaMedia Review: January 25

POLITICS

Trud presents in a front-page article a forecast for the 2024 European Parliament (EP) elections by the European Council on Foreign Relations, according to which there will be a major shift to the Right in many countries. Bulgaria is expected to send representatives of seven parties to the EP in June, including the EU-skeptical Vazrazhdane (3 MEPs), the nationalist-conservative-populist There Is Such a People (1 MEP), and the pro-Russian The Left! (1 MEP), the daily writes. These parties have never had MEPs. The Bulgarian party with the highest number of MEPs is forecast to be GERB with 5 seats in the EP (currently 6), followed by Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria with 3 seats. The Movement for Rights and Freedoms and the Bulgarian Socialist Party are expected to win 2 seats each.

On Bulgarian National Television’s (BNT) morning show, MEP Radan Kanev (Democrats for Strong Bulgaria/European People’s Party) called on Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria (of which Democrats for Strong Bulgaria is a member) to run jointly in the EP elections. In that way, they could become the biggest group of Bulgarian representatives to the EP. “The news that there are talks on a single candidate list, that Continue the Change has officially offered such a list is a very big success, in my opinion. Not a personal success but a success for the entire community,” Kanev argued.

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Duma quotes Socialist MP Yordanka Georgieva as explaining on Bulgaria ON AIR why the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP), together with the opposition groups of Vazrazhdane and There Is Such a People, is challenging the constitutionality of the January 19 election by Parliament of Dessislava Atanassova and Borislav Belozelkov to the Constitutional Court. Their election for a nine-year term in office goes against the Constitution but it is also against morals, because you cannot and should not elect political figures as constitutional judges. Atanassova is known as the right hand of GERB leader Boyko Borissov and has been floor leader of GERB in several parliaments, Georgieva recalled. In her words, nothing has changed overnight by Atanassova becoming a constitutional judge for one to claim she will be taking unbiased decisions. The January 19 election in Parliament marked the Constitutional Court’s takeover from the inside, because the political appointees will be protecting not the Constitution but the backs of their party leaders.

Mediapool.bg writes that the Supreme Bar Council has increased significantly the public pressure on Atanassova and Belazelkov to not swear in as constitutional judges on Friday. The Sofia college of lawyers Wednesday called on the two to turn down the post. The problem lies not only in Atanassova being a political nomination but also in the purely legal dispute between Parliament and the Constitutional Court. During the election on January 19, the MPs demonstratively ignored the interpretation of the Constitution by the Constitutional Court whereby the two new judges should have a term in office of seven instead of nine years, because they were elected with a two-year delay.

On Bulgarian National Radio, political expert and specialist in comparative constitutional law Daniel Smilov said that the reactions of lawyer colleges across Bulgaria against Atanassova’s election are the result of concern over that political figure’s independence. However, this type of problem cannot be solved using procedural moves. According to Smilov, the President’s arguments against the election over the constitutional procedure are not fully correct, but the head of State should not be attacked the way Movement for Rights and Freedoms floor leader Delyan Peevski attacked him: with hints at corruption and hidden threats that the prosecution service should interfere. “The President, right or wrong, has his arguments, and there should be political arguments against him, not such threats,” Smilov added. GERB see the risk in making such political nominations and if they act rationally, they should learn their lesson from what is happening.

On Nova TV’s morning show, experts commented on the topic of the newly elected constitutional judges. According to social anthropologist Haralan Aleksandrov, this topic is deeply uninteresting for Bulgarians and a purely elitarian conflict. According to journalist Ruja Raycheva, the Right’s outrage is happening online, not in the streets. Atanassova’s election should revive this protest against GERB and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms. However, the problem lies in that those who voted for Atanassova are the same people who were against the two parties back in the day. Banker Levon Hampartzoumian commented on the economic situation in Bulgaria amid the current political situation. “The economy is going well. Germany is showing symptoms of slowing down, but that is yet to have an impact on Bulgaria. Savings are record-high, the unemployment rate is low. That gives a basis on which the ambitious politicians make crises up,” he said.

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Telegraf has an interview with Prof Milena Stefanova, political expert and lecturer at St Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia, who argues that a coalition agreement is the solution to the impasse in the Sofia Municipal Council, the work of which has been blocked since the local elections in autumn 2023 due to failure to elect a chairperson six times in a row. A seventh attempt is scheduled for Thursday’s sitting of the Council.

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Trud has an interview with Diyan Stamatov, head of the Union of Employers in the Public Education System and former deputy education minister, who talks about the role of AI in education. The Ministry of Education has been working for a month now on guidelines for the use of AI, parameters for its use at various stages of education as well as moral categories it has to meet. The talks on these guidelines, led by Deputy Minister Nataliya Miteva, are at an advanced stage, and teachers’ proposals are of top importance. In his words, such a national framework is highly necessary but, of course, it will have to be constantly updated, perhaps once a year, if not more often, because AI develops very fast and its use in education cannot possibly be stopped, be there guidelines or not.

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24 Chasa has an interview with philosopher Michel Eltchaninoff, who talks about Russia and its policy on Bulgaria. He argues that Russia bets on instability in this country, and that Putinism is a Hydra with many heads.

ECONOMY

24 Chasa’s front-page story presents statistics by the Bulgarian National Bank about the deposits of households in December 2023. Despite the crazy spending for Christmas, Bulgarians deposited in banks the record BGN 2.3 billion. A drop in consumer loans was observed, but mortgage loans increased to BGN 407 million, the daily highlights.

Trud has an inside-page article on the same statistics, putting the emphasis on the record-high mortgage loans.

Capital.bg has an article looking into the reason for the typically low share of mortgage loans in Bulgaria. Data of the Registry Agency shows that in the third quarter of 2023, for example, a property was purchased with a loan in 21.5% of all cases, and that is no exception over the years. This is baffling when you consider the share of 80 to 90% in Germany, the UK, and the US, among other countries. According to the article, this Bulgarian phenomenon is the result of the large share of Bulgarians who own property, the big savings, the grey economy, and the relatively low prices.

Segabg.com quotes lawyer Desislava Filipova as saying that banks and fast loan companies in Bulgaria continue setting traps in the contracts with their clients, resulting in people becoming serious indebted and unable to pay their installments. She has led dozens of cases where clients are suing predatory creditors. She gave as an example a case where a client gets a loan of BGN 1,500 but with an interest rate of 41% and has to pay BGN 1,294 just for failing to fill in a guarantor; the costs for servicing the loan thus increase to 335% a year. There are EU directives and interpretations of the EU Court of Justice that pressure financial institutions into no longer setting such traps in the loan contracts, and Bulgarian courts – into better protecting consumers who have fallen victim to such traps. However, applying the EU rules in Bulgaria is a slow process due to the creditors’ caste having a strong lobby in the National Assembly, Filipova argued.

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Telegraf writes on its front page that as a result of the war in Ukraine, the second pension of Bulgarians has shrunk by BGN 335.

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24 Chasa reports that Bulgarian State Railways (BDZ) is buying some 70 passenger carriages from Germany’s Deutsche Bahn for a good price following three months of negotiations. The carriages can move at a speed of 200 km/h and will service the railway lines between Sofia and the coastal cities of Varna and Burgas, the Transport Ministry said following a meeting between Minister Georgi Gvozdeikov, German Ambassador to Bulgaria Irene Plank, and representatives of Deutsche Bahn. Through this deal, BDZ will modernize over 20% of its carriages; the ones currently in use are more than 40 years old. 

HOME AFFAIRS

bTV’s morning show focuses on cases of famous persons driving under the influence and recent murder cases in Bulgaria that have shocked society. The morning shows of BNT and Nova TV too have pieces on these gruesome cases.

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On BNT’s morning show, Customs Agency’s anti-drug trafficking unit head Stefan Bakalov said that the last 10 to 15 years have seen a gradation in drug trafficking and narcotic substances. Their use is subject to market mechanisms – supply and demand, he explained. There currently are several narcotic substances used the most, starting with different types of cannabis-based products (genetically modified or with added synthetic ingredients). Next in popularity is cocaine, the production of which has increased in Colombia, Peru, Bolivia, Guatemala, Honduras, and Venezuela, Bakalov said.