site.btaMedia Review: March 15

All dailies, TV channels, the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR) and Mediapool.bg report on Patriarch Neophyte's passing and the national days of mourning observed by Bulgarians on Friday and Saturday.

24 Chasa has published a spread interview with historian Prof. Hristo Matanov, who pointed out that while a new patriarch should be elected within four months, according to the rules, that process may take longer due to power struggle within the clergy. Matanov also spoke about a number of external interests coming from the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Macedonian Orthodox Church, the Serbian Orthodox Church, the Church of Greece and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, which may try to influence the election.

Asked whether Patriarch Kirill of Moscow will come to Bulgaria for Neophyte's burial, Matanov suggested that such a move is unlikely, as Kirill's influence in the Bulgarian Church is already significant. The expert said: "Most of our metropolitans are pro-Russian, they have studied there. Some have spiritual mentors of Russian origin. I am not sure whether Kirill falls under the sanctions of the European Union and whether his coming to our country would not oblige the Bulgarian authorities to arrest him. I think he will not come, as Putin did not go to Turkiye."

Ioan, Metropolitan of Varna and Veliki Preslav, told bTV: "We have informed the Russian Patriarch Kirill about the death of Patriarch Neophyte. The letter has a notifying character."

POLITICS

Trud reports that the negotiations between GERB-UDF and Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB), surrounding the government rotation, are ongoing. The article says that CC-DB demand to avoid using terms such as coalition or joint government. MPs told the daily that outgoing Minister of Finance Assen Vassilev proposed that GERB should get to appoint two or three ministers. He suggested that GERB already have five acting ministers, specifically Foreign Minister Mariya Gabriel, Education and Science Minister Galin Tzokov, Culture Minister Krastyu Krastev, Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov and e-Government Minister Alexander Yolovski.

Telegraph writes that GERB-UDF have requested their appointees to head the Ministries of Defence, Energy and Agriculture, however, CC-DB are unwilling to surrender those positions, especially the Defence Ministry, which is currently headed by Todor Tagarev. CC-DB are supposedly willing to let GERB appoint new heads for the Ministries of Innovation and Growth, Environment, Tourism and Health. Capital learned that GERB have asked to have their representatives head six ministries - foreign, energy, defence, agriculture, innovation and environment.

Capital writes that CC-DB believe that dragging out the negotiations in time would benefit GERB, because that would give them the opportunity to increase their pressure for replacing certain ministers. "For some time now, they [GERB] have had Finance Minister Assen Vassilev in their crosshairs and more recently, Defence Minister Todor Tagarev," the text reads.

ECONOMY

Trud cites data from the National Social Security Institute (NSSI), according to which the average monthly pension in February 2024 with all benefits included totalled BGN 830.56. This is a 13% increase compared to the same month last year. There were 2,039,022 pensioners in Bulgaria in February 2024, or 10,373 more compared to February 2023, according to data from

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In an interview for the BNR quoted by Trud, Bulgarian President of the Association of Industrial Poultry Management Board, Daniel Bozhankov, said that no price spike in eggs is expected around Easter. He said: "Our production covers per capita consumption needs. We produce around 5 million eggs a day. Production fell slightly because of avian flu, but producers have already started to recover." While Bulgaria exports eggs to Greece and Western Europe, it also imports eggs from Romania, which are cheaper due to the Romanian state supporting its local poultry farmers.

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24 Chasa's frontpage is dedicated to legislation voted by the European Parliament (EP) on Wednesday, which aims to limit the amount of food waste generated by households, retailers and restaurants. According to Brussels, the 27 EU Member States generate some 60 million tonnes of food waste annually, which translates to 131 kg per person and a loss of EUR 132 billion. The MEPs proposed higher binding waste reduction targets to be met at national level by December 31, 2030 - at least 20% in food processing and manufacturing. Rapporteur Anna Zalewska said: "Parliament has come up with targeted solutions to reduce food waste, such as promoting 'ugly' fruits and veggies, keeping an eye on unfair market practices, clarifying date labelling and donating unsold-but-consumable food. For textiles, we also want to include non-household products, carpets and mattresses, as well as sales via online platforms."

MEPs agreed to extend producer responsibility schemes, through which producers that sell textiles in the EU would have to cover the costs for collecting, sorting and recycling them separately. The new rules would cover products such as clothing and accessories, blankets, bed linen, curtains, hats, footwear, mattresses and carpets.

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Trud's frontpage reports that the Non Organisation Taxi Union calls for the introduction of a new fare, which should be applied during holidays such as Easter, Christmas and New Year's Eve. The goal is to have the final price of the taxi ride doubled compared to the current one during these times of the year. Implementing the Union's demands would require amendments to the Automobile Transport Act. Another demand made by the Union is to have all-electric taxis charge at prices twice as low as the current market price for electric vehicles.

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A Telegraph article quotes expert Martin Milanov, who said that Bulgarians have "stashed" some 4,500 kg of gold as an investment, or approximately 144,000 troy ounces worth around USD 300 million. The article specifies that this data may be outdated, as it was collected pre-COVID. Analyses suggest that Bulgaria ranks third among EU Member States in terms of investment gold per capita, behind Germany and Italy. The price of gold on the international markets has reached a historic peak of USD 2,176 per troy ounce.

ENERGY

Duma's frontpage criticizes the National Assembly for "signing a black cheque" for building the new Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant reactors. Borislav Gutsanov of the Bulgarian Socialist Party suggested that Energy Minister Rumen Radev's decision to sign the contract might be a symptom of Bulgaria losing its sovereignty and turning into a colony and a banana republic.

IT

A Trud article based on a publication in kaldata.com reports that cybersecurity experts are becoming increasingly likely to turn to cybercrime side hustles in order to boost their income. The information is based on a study by the Chartered Institute of Information Security, which predicts that 25% of cybersecurity leaders will leave their roles by 2025 due to high levels of stress and insufficient pay. The article quotes cybersecurity expert and consultant Hal Pomeranz, who said: " Mass layoffs in the tech industry destroy employee morale and breed cynicism and contempt for management. I wonder how many of the remaining employees would feel comfortable selling out their employers if the price was right?"

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This week's issue of Capital is dedicated to AI and its growing role in Bulgaria. While it is hard to predict the scope and exact specifics of AI's influence in the future, the magazine's leading article states that the development of artificial intelligence will cause huge changes in many different areas in the coming years. The article reads: "New professions will emerge, others will disappear. Some industries will only be read about in history textbooks (or rather in lessons, because there will hardly be any textbooks), while others will form the future. Some countries will get richer, others will get poorer. This is where the importance of Bulgarian AI developments comes in, which many people have found out about recently, around the news about BgGPT. Having capacity in AI is now a matter of national sovereignty. If predictions that AI will lead to serious economic growth prove true, dependence on foreign technologies and platforms could be risky. The same applies to areas such as defence, even to government." The article concludes that AI sovereignty can be as important as energy independence.

Founder of the Institute for Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence and Technology (INSAIT) with Sofia University, Martin Vechev, told Capital about INSAIT's most famous project, BgGPT. Vechev said: "BgGPT is a strategic project for Bulgaria, as it provides an analogue of 'energy independence' for the state and business, but in AI."

The article reads: "Basic language models such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, Meta's Llama, and Google's Gemini are taught primarily in English. This is why they also work harder in underrepresented languages such as Bulgarian, thus limiting their overall use in the respective countries. For this reason, it is important to develop own specialized models in the respective language. When BgGPT was released in early March, many Facebook 'experts' mocked its answers, which included so-called hallucinations (where the model makes up answers - this has also happened with far larger projects like ChatGPT). But the idea is to have BgGPT be not just a Bulgarian chatbot, but, because it is open access, to be used by public or private organizations to perform certain tasks after being trained internally by them."

EDUCATION

An article in Capital, that reports about alleged violations carried out in South-West University Neofit Rilski. The text begins with a joke that describes that status of education in Bulgaria: "Knowing how I got my engineering degree, I'm afraid of the kind of doctors that are treating us." An investigation by the Ministry of Education and Science established more than 130 violations, among which missing grades, official records edited with correction fluid, grades with missing professors' signatures, grades signed by the wrong professors.

CULTURE

Trud writes about some of the upcoming concerts in Bulgaria, which include Judas Priest on July 19 and in Armin van Buuren on August 30, both in Sofia. Other musical acts to perform here will include Iron Maiden's Bruce Dickinson, Bring Me the Horizon, Megadeth and Korn.