site.btaMedia Review: September 16

MILITARY AIRCRAFT CRASH 

Friday’s crash of a military aircraft L-30 at the Graf Ignatievo Air Base during preparations for an air show continues to dominate the news. Three former defence ministers commented the accident on the morning programmes of the three largest broadcasters. 

The framework agreement for the overhaul of four L-39 aircraft was signed by former caretaker defence minister Dimitar Stoyanov in November 2023 and the contract for the aircraft that crashed near Graf Ignatievo - a month later, said Stoyanov himself on Bulgarian National Television. 

He described as false allegations that nothing is being done for Bulgaria’s military aviation. According to him, it is a speculation that the planes are old. The aircraft had undergone a major overhaul and had returned to Bulgaria only three months ago, Stoyanov said.   

For Stoyanov, the crash is a cruel blow not only to the Air Force, but to the armed forces and the country. In his words, in recent days politicians who have no idea of aviation equipment or combat aviation have been making speculations.

For its part, the Defence Ministry has to find the right way to present the causes to the public and the Bulgarian public needs to know what happened. The commands of the air bases and the Air Force have said they will cooperate with the investigation. It is untrue that recordings from the scene of the crash were seized and deleted, they were merely copied, Stoyanov added. 

If someone meddles with this process, the likelihood of making a similar mistake in the future is high. The idea of the investigation is to find out the causes so that such mistakes are not made. At the moment there is a perception that the truth about what happened will be covered up, which is absolutely untrue. 

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Former defence minister Velizar Shalamanov said that one of the most important reasons for the crash is the insufficient flying hours and training of the pilots. A parliamentary committee should seek answers as to why Bulgarian pilots cannot achieve the required flights per year, as well as seek answers as to how important and necessary these demonstrations and air shows are, and whether the funds could not be better spent, said Shalamanov on Bulgarian National Television.   

According to Shalamanov, until the causes of the accident are established, the L-39 aircraft should be grounded. He added that red lines should not be crossed and pilots with less than 50 flying hours per year should not be expected to perform in airs hows.  

To what extent demonstrations and airs shows fit into the modernization of the air force and airmen. How is an airshow planned, how are pilots trained, how is an airshow funded, asked Shalamanov.

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Speaking on bTV, former defence minister former defence minister Todor Tagarev said that the small number of flying hours for pilots is the biggest problem in Bulgaria’s aviation. 

According to Tagarev, it is possible that the height and speed were not enough for the manoeuvre. "The black box and the command console recordings will show whether the pilots undertook a higher-risk manoeuvre. Probably today [September 16] the data in the box should be ready. The box is in relatively good condition and it should be read in Bulgaria," Tagarev said.   

Certainly, the plane was flightworthy by the documentation, training planes fly without armament. "My interpretation is that the organizers of the air show planned flights for which the pilots did not have sufficient training. This is done to show how good they are, to show they are the best.“ The Air Force leadership needs to consider what is reasonable and where there is a measured risk, and not do things for show. 

BEGINNING OF NEW SCHOOL YEAR 

Around 720,000 students are expected to enter schools across the country on September 16. Of these, 58,000 are first-graders, the Bulgarian National Radio reported.  

More than 2, 300 schools in the country will open their doors.  

More than 92,000 teachers and specialists will be working in kindergartens and schools, the Education Ministry said.  

Speaking on Bulgarian National Television, Education Minister Galin Tsokov said several schools may try a complete ban on mobile phones. "The current legislation there bans the use of phones during school hours. This is a contentious issue in every society. I am in favour of the French model. This ban started after a UNESCO report. We are monitoring what is happening in other education systems.”  

"This year all students will have free textbooks. This involved some serious organization, the funding of the printing of these free textbooks, which we were able to manage," Tsokov said.   

"Bulgaria’s education and education system are good. In recent years, it has been developing in expanding vocational training. We need to adapt education in life skills formation."   

"This year average teacher salaries will go up by about 14.5%. Over the past 10 years, the number of young teachers in the Bulgarian education system has increased significantly," he explained.  

SNAP ELECTIONS - FORECASTS 

The change in Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) and the loss of the total control by Delyan Peevski will shift to other parties, said ex-prime minister Nikolay Denkov of Continue the Change (CC) on Bulgarian National Radio. 

"Peevski will want to make up by increasing his influence in other parties. The Bulgarian Socialist Party is one of them. GERB is the other party on which he will try to increase his influence. The clash in GERB between the people who will listen more to Peevski and those who would like to move forward as a European party is inevitable," Denkov predicted.  

Again, there will be no clear winner in these elections, Denkov believes. According to him, no one will agree to Borissov  leading the country. “We can eventually govern with GERB, but we cannot go back in 2020 as Borissov and Peevski want,” Denkov said, adding: "If someone has the illusion that CC will support Borissov's GERB - to return to this model of distributing portions, which is similar to an oligarchic model, this will not happen with the participation of CC." 

Bulgaria is not a freefalling country, Denkov was adamant. According to him, there is no economic crisis in Bulgaria because these in the past four years Bulgaria has had the best economic indicators since it joined the EU. The political crisis is still manageable, he said and warned: "However, if the political crisis were to spill over into an economic one, this could have severe consequences."  

Denkov stressed that it was important that the government, the Central Election Commission, and the courts did their job flawlessly so that there would be no grounds for challenging the election results. 

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Dnevnik.bg quotes pollsters Genoveva Petrova (Alpha Research) and Dobromir Zhivkov (Market Links) who say that a fragmented parliament of at least six to eight political forces is likely after the October 27 elections.  

"It is because there is a lack of motivation among voters. With a low turnout, formations that do not enjoy enough trust and support, can gather the votes they need, as happened with Velichie,” Petrova said.  

According to Zhivkov, the frustration with the political forces leads to large electoral segments being redistributed literally in the last days before the elections. Moreover, even the core constituencies of the main parties are already shrinking.  

The two sociologists would not make predictions how the split would affect the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF). "A significant part of the movement's supporters live with the idea that someone is trying to steal the party they have identified with for decades. Who is the authentic bearer of the MRF symbol and who is not - we have yet to investigate, and it will become clear at the elections,” Petrova said. “It is clear that the faction around honorary chairman Ahmed Dogan is trying to win recognition among its own electorate,” she added.

Of the rift in the Bulgarian Socialist Party the two agree that scandals do not contribute to the mobilization of the electorate. If the risk of further radicalization is overcome, which means voting for Vazrazhdane, Mech and Velichie, they may have a slightly higher result, Zhivkov predicted.

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

TrudNews.bg interviews Daniel Panov, mayor of Veliko Tarnovo municipality and chairman of the National Association of Municipalities in the Republic of Bulgaria (NAMRB) about the challenges facing the local government in the conditions of crisis and a series of caretaker cabinets.  According to Panov, after 2021 municipalities were the only island of stability and statehood.  

Asked what are the most pressing issues facing local government at the moment, Panov said that one of the biggest problems is the lack of water. And not so much because there is no water, but because of the lack of large investments in water and sewerage infrastructure. This is why more and more settlements are becoming water-stressed. It is impossible for municipalities to find the vast resources needed to permanently solve these problems. Investment in roads is the second pressing problem.

Of the upcoming increase of waste collection fees, Panov says that the Association has identified it as the biggest challenge for the municipalities in this term.  Local authorities - municipalities - have been given a legal framework to implement which is difficult to do in effect. Certainly. as a calculation it is possible, but the result has social dimensions and these are particularly worrying for all municipalities.  The problem with the registrations at current and permanent addresses, unoccupied dwellings and the inability to track data creates extreme difficulties in producing accurate estimates. 

Therefore, the Association is calling for legal changes to give municipalities access to correct, accurate and up-to-date data about population, employees, businesses and properties. Between 5% and 30% of data matches, which requires extra work for the administrations, citizens and businesses. Between 5% and 30% of data matches, which requires extra work for the administrations, citizens and businesses.  It would be fairest to calculate the waste collection fee based on waste quantity. 

However, before the legislation was passed, someone should have honestly told people that this is very expensive. What is needed is a targeted state policy of investment and a significant improvement and substantial expansion of the separate waste collection system so that the polluter pays principle is effectively implemented and citizens are actually incentivized to separate their waste so that they can also benefit from the advantages associated with this.  

Of the financial decentralization for municipalities Panov says that the Association is in talks with the Finance Ministry about other very important steps to allow part of the income tax of citizens to remain in municipal budgets. However, a regular government and a stable parliamentary majority is needed to take this important step.

ECONOMY

In a TrudNews.bg analysis Dimitar Chobanov writes that incomes in Bulgaria are slowly approaching those in the eurozone. According to the National Statistical Institute, in the second quarter of 2024 the gross domestic product at current prices amounted to almost BGN 47.7 billion, up by 11.1% on an annual basis. Real growth (the change in the quantity of goods and services for final consumption) compared with the same period of the previous year was 2.3% and thus accelerated for the third consecutive quarter.  

The GDP deflator, which measures the change in the price level, was 8.6%, accelerating for the second consecutive quarter. At the same time, this is not consistent with the falling rate of inflation as measured by the consumer price index. It could also be interpreted as an indication that this indicator has probably been underestimated, especially in the second half of 2023, which would imply that real GDP growth is overestimated both in this period and for the year as a whole. 

According to Eurostat data, real GDP growth is higher in seven EU economies. On average in the EU this indicator is 1% and in the euro area it is 0.8%. This means that, by the second quarter, these two economic areas have accelerated their growth rates and are currently away from the possibility of registering a recession.  

Growth rates show that average incomes in Bulgaria are approaching those in the EZ, but relatively slowly. Thus, they are still the lowest in the EU and would therefore be the lowest in the eurozone upon eventual accession - a sign of the insufficient readiness according to the real convergence indicators.