site.btaMedia Review: August 2

POLITICS

The third-mandate talks for forming a new government, which There Is Such a People (TISP) is holding with other parliamentary forces, have almost no chance to succeed, Capital says. According to the weekly magazine, the reason is that GERB and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms-Peevski (MRF-Peevski) have an interest in a quick end to the present Parliament and are pushing for the earliest possible conduct of what will be the seventh snap parliamentary elections since April 2021. Delyan Peevski, whose rift with MRF Honorary Chair Ahmed Dogan threatens to throw the former out of the party and out of politics, apparently counts that prompt elections will keep it from happening definitively and irreversibly.

Several parliamentary forces (CC-DB, TISP, BSP, Vazrazhdane and MRF-Dogan) are looking for a way to address the stalemate resulting from the absence of an alternative to Dimitar Glavchev as caretaker Prime Minister. The goal is, on the one hand, to give President Rumen Radev a real choice among various potential candidates for the post, which will rob Peevski of his influence on the caretaker cabinet, exercised mainly through Interior Minister Kalin Stoyanov. The Interior Minister is in charge of suppressing vote-buying in election campaigns - and Peevski counts primarily on this resource. The way for the above-mentioned group of political forces to proceed is to oust National Assembly Chair Raya Nazaryan. She has stated that she has no intention of becoming a caretaker prime minister. This group of forces have enough voting power to elect a new National Assembly leader. The problem is that they are failing to unite around a single candidate.

In addition to the possible loss of leverage through the caretaker government, Peevski is also faced with another risk. The MRF Central Council can expel him from the party at its upcoming meeting, the analysis says.

* * *

"BSP and TISP Find Much Common Ground for Cabinet," runs the main frontpage headline in Duma. The report covers a meeting between the Bulgarian Socialist Party and There Is Such a People, which was part of the consultations for possibly forming a government under the third mandate within the tenure of the present National Assembly. BSP for Bulgaria Floor Leader Borislav Gutsanov said: "The third mandate is very different from the first two. We believe that now is the time to salvage it."

The Socialists found common ground with TISP on the matters of electing a Bulgarian EU Commissioner, North Macedonia and regional policy. They called for decisions to replace members of the Commission on Protection of Competition whose terms in office have expired and to push through a new law on judicial power. While admitting that it is normal for the two parties to have differences, TISP Floor Leader Toshko Yordanov said: "In time of crisis, however, it is necessary to look for the things which the parties share in their programmes, so that the crisis can be overcome."

* * *

About 200 people started a pilgrimage from the St Sophia Church in the capital to the Rila Monastery in Southwestern Bulgaria to retrace the last stage of the Holy Way of St John of Rila the Miracle Maker, Trud says in its main story. The Head of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Daniil, officiated at a holy liturgy and a blessing of the waters, after which the pilgrims carried the Holy Cross in a procession to the St George Rotunda in downtown Sofia. This was the beginning of their long walk along the Holy Way, the daily reports.

FOREIGN RELATIONS

Bulgaria has 29 days to nominate its new European Commissioner and stands a unique chance of getting a key portfolio in the Commission such as Energy, 24 Chasa says. The question is who exactly will make the nomination, the paper notes. The government is supposed to propose two people, a man and a woman, by August 30, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will pick one of them. If the TISP party fails to form a regular cabinet under the third mandate, the two commissioner candidates will have to be named by the caretaker government, which will set a precedent, the daily says.

* * *

Political scientist Sergei Petrov says in a 24 Chasa interview that the war in Ukraine is not anywhere near the end. A possible victory for Donald Trump in the US presidential elections will not help end the war, because Trump only freezes conflicts, Petrov argues. According to him, the Western approach to Ukraine should be based on a clear vision and achievable goals. Discussing the Middle East, the scholar says that a full-scale military conflict in the region is little likely, but the possibility should not be ruled out completely. He supports his remark with the observation that in the case of Ukraine everyone thought that there would be no war, but it happened. Weak leadership in recent years has weakened Europe as a factor in the world arena, he says.

ECONOMY, CLIMATE

Romanian prosecutors are after Bulgarian construction company Trace Group on suspicion of engaging in activities for which it has no license, the Capital weekly says. In Bulgaria, Trace Group Hold is one of the large road construction companies. It won many key infrastructure contracts under the former GERB government. Besides Romania, the company also had trouble in Czechia. It is associated with several major projects in Bulgaria involving wrongdoings and penalties, the magazine says.

* * *

Bulgaria and Romania will build two hydroelectric power plants on the Danube River, Trud says. A resuscitated project for a Turnu Magurele-Nikopol Hydrotechnical Complex, a joint undertaking of Bulgaria's National Electricity Company (NEK) and Romania's Hidroelectrica, has been included on the EU list of cross-border renewable energy projects, meaning it can receive EU funding. The list is pending definitive approval and publication in the EU Official Journal, NEK said, quoted by the daily.

* * *

The expected euro changeover in Bulgaria can have a catalyzing effect on the national economy, but there should be changes in the overall government policy, economist Mihail Krastev tells Trud in an interview. According to Krastev, the level of foreign investment stays low, which is mainly due to political uncertainties and legislative deficiencies. Growing wages, particularly in larger regional capitals, have made Bulgaria a not-so-appealing investment destination because labour costs are not very low here, and perhaps also because worker skills are not particularly high as many skilled workers emigrate. Krastev does not share the pessimism of European politicians that poverty is growing on the continent. In fact, he says, Europe is in one of its best moments in history as far as poverty and employment are concerned.

* * *

BGN 4 billion in funding to maintain national roads (as opposed to motorways and municipal roads) has been allocated to a handful of businesses, SegaBG.com says. In addition, these same companies will repair Bulgaria's motorways, and some of them will be building sections of the Hemus Motorway under highly controversial in-house arrangements. The Road Infrastructure Agency and the Commission for Protection of Competition have turned a blind eye to the sector's obvious monopolization, which goes with low quality and high prices, the website says.

* * *

"The Era of Hot Cities," caps the cover story in the Capital weekly. It says that the general climate warming, combined with heatwaves and the "heat island" effect, makes for lower quality of life in the cities. Urban areas need to adapt to climate change, which is a complex and costly process, but it has no alternative. Resources are available to those who are really committed and motivated, the story goes.

Bulgaria is in a region highly vulnerable to all adverse manifestations of climate change, the magazine goes on to say. Here, summers are getting hotter and drier, and there is also the danger of severe storms and floods. Heatwaves are perhaps the most tangible and pressing problem. According to the Fitzlab initiative, 60 years from now, under a high emissions scenario, summers in Sofia will be 7.2 C hotter than usual and will be like those in the southern part of North Macedonia. Similar forecasts have been made for Ruse, Stara Zagora and other Bulgarian cities.

To address the situation, cities should act very systematically and take on the role of project managers, the analysis says. They need to have a climate plan, a key document laying down the steps of transformation. Municipalities need knowledge transfer, because one of the problems is that solutions are not universal and cannot be applied en masse. Public funding (national or European) will not be enough. Borrowed capital will be necessary, at least for large capital expenses such as those for transforming infrastructural systems.

In this context, Capital highlights the situation in Bulgaria's second-largest city of Plovdiv, which, it says, is perhaps the nation's hottest city. The weekly notes that the local authorities in Plovdiv are working piecemeal to reduce the effect of heat on the people. Europe and the wider world offer examples of viable solutions, but it seems that, in Plovdiv, employers are the only ones taking action to protect their employees and customers.

LIFESTYLE

Evolutionary anthropologist Herman Pontzer of Duke University in North Carolina has busted the myth that metabolism slowdown prevents people from shedding weight, 24 Chasa says in its main story. Based on 20 years of research, Prof. Pontzer concluded that metabolism is very fast until 20 years of age, then maintains the same level until we are 60, and then begins to slow, not dramatically but by 1% annually. This means that we should not blame metabolism for our not being able to squeeze into our jeans. The real obstacle is a kind of energy compensation mechanism associated with working out. The professor says that a person working in an office burns almost the same daily amount of calories as the Hadza people of Tanzania, who walk tens of kilometres a day hunting for prey.