site.btaMedia Review: September 25

FOREIGN RELATIONS

A decision to make Bulgaria and Romania full members of the Schengen border-free area is expected by the end of this year, MediaPool.bg says, quoting Yordanka Chobanova, head of the European Commission Representation to Bulgaria. She said that European Home Affairs Commissioner Ylva Johansson and the Hungarian Interior Minister are expected on October 10 to propose to the Council of the European Union to lift Schengen internal land border checks for Bulgaria and Romania.

At present, only Austria has official reservations about the two Balkan neighbours' full membership of Schengen, but the matter is sensitive to other countries as well, particularly after Germany reintroduced border controls, the website notes. Schengen air and sea border controls were lifted for Bulgaria and Romania on March 31. The two countries hope that the same will happen with the land borders by the year's end, the news item says.

It quotes GERB leader Boyko Borissov as commenting that, "with elections in Austria a week away, this may not be the best time to discuss the issue." He said Bulgaria has failed to do its job over the last four years to make its case for full membership.

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There can be no victory in the Israel-Hamas conflict, journalist Georgi Milkov said on the morning talk show of BNT1, the main channel of Bulgarian National Television. "There can be moments of tactical gain for either side, but unfortunately, both sides are losing lives," Milkov said. "I do not know how the Israelis see it, but Lebanon is more than just Hezbollah. However, Hezbollah is so deeply incorporated into Lebanese society on so many levels and layers that it is difficult to draw the distinction now." The journalist predicted that something worse is looming on the horizon. Even if the Hamas soldiers are killed to the last man, nothing good will follow, according to him. "This is what the Israeli military experts are saying: Suppose we kill all Hamas soldiers; the next moment a kid who lost his parents will take a knife and will try to kill the first Israelis who come his way."

POLITICS

The Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) Coalition offers the Bulgarian people a model of governance in which the parties do not need to rely on mutual trust, CC-DB co-leader Kiril Petkov said on BNT1. Petkov said: "It is the model that we see in France, in Italy, with a prime minister equally distant from all parties and enjoying public confidence, an economist or a law expert who accepts the main policies in our programmes. This model will make it possible for Bulgaria to avoid an eighth parliamentary election [in less than four years] even if the parties do not trust each other."

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The role of Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) Honorary Chair Ahmed Dogan in the rise of Delyan Peevski, who is now Dogan's adversary in the divided party, is discussed in an analysis published on SegaBG.com under the headline "Dogan's Catharsis Comes 10 Years Late." The author, Lyudmil Iliev, recalls the protests in 2013 against Peevski's nomination to head the State Agency for National Security. "You chose a wolf to guard the sheep in the pen," was how the people reacted to the nomination made by the Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) and the MRF.

The BSP has been in decline ever since, the author says. Nothing changed in the MRF. The party continued to provide a political umbrella for Peevski, totally ignoring the concerns of Bulgaria's Western partners and the public opinion in the country. In early 2024, the MRF even elected Peevski as party leader with the assiduous support of Dogan, who proclaimed him "a phenomenon of Bulgarian politics."

Now, the Dogan loyalists are urging people to fight Peevski, the analyst says. This comes after the honorary leader realized he could lose his mansions, and his people could lose their posts in the party. In a recent statement, Dogan basically said that what Peevski did over the years, he did it by himself and for himself. In fact, it was Dogan who removed Mustafa Karadyi (the MRF leader until the end of 2023), thus clearing the ground for the pushy "phenomenon" to head the party, the analysis goes. The author concludes that Dogan is personally responsible for Peevski's rise.

The journalist notes that Dogan's supporters have revived the topic of the so-called Regeneration Process, the forcible assimilation of ethnic Turks in the communist era. In Facebook posts, Dogan loyalists have used the phrase "traitors of our ethnic community" to describe their ethnic Turkish fellow MRF members who are on Peevski's side, and have warned that the Regeneration Process is recurring and ethnic Turks are under threat. Dogan himself has readily taken up this rhetoric: "Their ultimate goal is to do everything possible to wipe out the MRF from the political arena of Bulgaria because the MRF is a guarantor of the protective system of our community."

After all, Dogan has nothing much to tell us, the author says. He does not admit his personal responsibility for Peevski's career, he just concedes that the party made a mistake, which is a vague and weak catharsis that comes 10 years late. He is trying to scare the Bulgarian Turks into believing that they will, again, lose their Turkish names and will be forced to adopt Slavic names, as in the Regeneration Process - but he offers them nothing for the future. On top of that, Dogan poses as an adversary to Peevski, as if he has nothing to do with Peevski's rise. Will voters believe him? – the writer asks in conclusion.

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Hours before the MPs go canvassing for votes in the campaign for the October 27 snap parliamentary elections, National Assembly Deputy Chair Rositsa Kirova says in a Trud interview that the political instability in Bulgaria "will continue unless we have the courage to admit our mistakes." Kirova says: "Selfishness has been the most destructive force in the successive national assemblies in which I have been present and in the overall political life of Bulgaria. The political players need to understand that we can accomplish something only if we stand together, if we put priority on the need for reforms and the needs of the citizens rather than thinking only about our own political future." Asked why this National Assembly has spent more time on oversight of the caretaker government than on making laws, Kirova explains that every national assembly takes some time before going full steam ahead, and this initial period can last a month or two.

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The BSP - United Left Coalition has complete lists of candidates registered nationwide for the October 27 early parliamentary elections, Duma reports in its main story. All member parties of the coalition are on the lists, and each of them holds a worthy place. For the first time, the leadership met the expectations of the grassroots chapters in full, said acting Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) Chair Atanas Zafirov, who is the coalition's top-of-the-list candidate in Sofia's Multimember Constituency No. 25. Zafirov commented: "Our objective is to offer a genuine left-wing alternative, put a stop to the disintegration of statehood, give change a chance, and make sure that what is new and leftist gets its proper place in the political arena. The time vacuum created by the right wing will be ended by the expertise, the experience and the continuity which exist in the left-wing alliance. Our candidates' lists are a combination of youth and parliamentary experience."

ECONOMY

About 20% of milk processors in Bulgaria fail to meet the requirements for making cheese. This means that one in five lumps of cheese on the market is fake, Trud says in its main story, citing data from non-governmental organizations. A check conducted by an NGO in the seaside city of Burgas this summer showed that a product labelled as "traditional cheese" was 80% water and salt mixed with gelatin, food gums and starch. The Milk Processors Association and the Association for Affordable Quality Food propose severe penalties. Non-compliance with production standards implies concealment of earnings, the paper says. According to Daniela Veleva of the National Revenue Agency, 150 checks at dairy processing facilities and wholesale outlets showed that 17% of them were failing to report part of their revenues.

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Asked why she appeared in the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) in connection with complaints against the procedure for supplying 35 multiple-unit trains for the Bulgarian State Railways (BDZ), caretaker Minister of Transport and Communications Krasimira Stoyanova tells 24 Chasa in an extensive interview that she did so because the case is very important, and the SAC is the highest court which will rule on the issue in substance. Moreover, she was the ministry's legal affairs director for 22 years and appeared in court in the most important cases. "You should not view my turning up in this case as a precedent, but as a sign of the government's respect for the court," Stoyanova says, denying allegations that she has been trying to influence the judges.

The minister notes that over the last three years the BDZ has not been allowed to conduct procedures for the supply of spare parts, which is one of the reasons for locomotives to catch fire accidentally. She has told the company that now they are free to do it, and they should do it competently. "If management changes helped, we would have the best railway system in Europe," Stoyanova says.

LIFESTYLE

The World Health Organization (WHO) called on governments, health organizations, parents and teachers to take prompt and adequate measures after a study called "Health Behaviour in School-aged Children" showed that the time adolescents spent online had increased sharply, 24 Chasa says in its main story. About 280,000 boys and girls aged 11, 13 and 15 years from 44 countries of Europe, Central Asia and Canada were covered by one of the largest-scale studies conducted so far. A WHO Europe report says that the harmful use of social media among adolescents increased from 7% in 2018 to 11% in 2022. This, along with the fact that 12% of adolescents spend too much time playing online games, is a cause for concern about the impact of technology on the mental health of young Europeans, the daily says. The study shows that children who are addicted to the internet get to use drugs and alcohol earlier in their life than those who are not.