site.btaMedia Review: October 2

ECONOMY

"The Costly and Painful Coal Phaseout in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe," runs the headline of an analysis published on MediaPool.bg. The Bulgarian website is named as a co-source along with Denik Referendum, HVG, HotNews.ro, and Gazeta Wyborcza. The analysis warns that the populism of mainstream parties and the reluctance to transform coal regions can cause Bulgaria to lose at least EUR 3 billion in EU funding for the recovery of its economy. The situation in Bulgaria is discussed in a wider context encompassing Poland, Czechia, Romania and Hungary. "Using political chicanery and assisted by the media machinery of interested oligarchs, these EU member states continue the propaganda and empty talk about preserving the coal sector instead of working effectively to replace these capacities with new ones, clean and efficient, and providing high-paid jobs," the analysis says.

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"If we want the Bulgarian energy sector to be independent, our coal-fired power plants should stay operational," said Dragomir Stoynev of the BSP-United Left Coalition, a parliamentary candidate for the constituencies of Stara Zagora and Razgrad, as quoted on page one in Duma. The left wing proposes a sustainable strategy for the energy sector, which includes retaining jobs and protecting the rights of coal miners, Stoynev said. He was adamant that the EU Green Deal should be renegotiated. BSP-United Left insists on postponing the liberalization of the electricity market for households to help deal with energy poverty.

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Crossing the Bulgarian-Serbian border is much faster now that the Kalotina checkpoint has been renovated, 24 Chasa says in its main story. Prime Minister Dimitar Glavchev opened the refurbished facility on Tuesday. Glavchev said traffic across Bulgaria's borders has increased dramatically over the last five years, by more than 100% via some checkpoints. "The border crossings should be viewed as a single whole to ensure trouble-free passage of people and goods," he noted. According to the Prime Minister, the infrastructure has been designed to get 2.5 million trucks across the Bulgarian border annually, but in 2023 their number was 4.5 million. The motorway to Kalotina is expected to be completed by next summer, the daily says.

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Young Bulgarians who earn more than BGN 2,000 a month are most afraid of becoming moneyless, shows a representative survey on the moods of young people aged between 15 and 29, conducted by the Trend Research Centre and covered in the main story in Trud. Half of respondents also list the fear of failure among their worst apprehensions. Young Bulgarians tend to sinк into debt for sheer whims, the survey shows. "We are raising an anxious generation who worry about how they can cope financially in the future," sociologist Evelina Slavkova comments. She describes the findings of the survey as "dramatic", and notes that no such anxiety about financial problems is observed in other countries.

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"Three People in Four Use AI at Work," caps a Trud interview with Kalin Dimtchev, General Manager of Microsoft Bulgaria and Microsoft Adriatics. He expects that artificial intelligence (AI) will be so smoothly integrated into our lives that we will not even notice it. Dimtchev says AI will create new jobs and roles as innovation advances. It is extremely important to adapt and make full use of it. Cyberthreats are constantly increasing and call for unflagging attention, he notes. The expert also points out that AI is revolutionizing medical diagnosis and speeding up the development of new cures. Asked how much time AI can save us, Dimtchev says it depends on the kind of work. It has been proven that those who work with large amounts of data can derive considerable benefit from AI-powered instruments. Europe is at the forefront of AI regulation, he says.

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Bulgarians have become obsessed with inflation, and this should be stopped, Institute for Market Economics chief economist Lachezar Bogdanov says, interviewed by 24 Chasa. He says that annual inflation in the coming years could be expected to be around 2% rather than 10%. Bogdanov says that if taxes are to be raised, it is not really obvious which taxes. Those of the rich? But rich people are not so many and do not put up with such changes so easily, the expert argues, adding that, even now, there are legal methods for "arbitration in tax matters." Working Bulgarians who are over 55 years old outnumber those under 35, Bogdanov says. According to him, employers need to make do with a shrinking pool of potential employees who are aging and not very skillful.

POLITICS

"If there is a scam, it is not the same everywhere; something is being done in an organized manner, but in different ways, obviously," Culture Minister Nayden Todorov said on the morning talk show of bTV. He was interviewed about an apparent scam, in connection with which Levon Manukyan, now ex-director of the Theatre, Music and Philharmonic Centre in the northeastern town of Razgrad, is charged with fictitious appointments which have caused detriment to the public purse. There is evidence of similar appointments in a drama theatre in Smolyan, South Central Bulgaria, the television said.

Todorov said: "People were appointed in Razgrad absolutely fictitiously, people who have nothing to do with culture and are obviously not from Razgrad." He said he does not want to see paranoia spread in the Culture Ministry. "The Razgrad scam is something radically new. And it involves extreme impudence and arrogance. The schemes we investigated before were about fraud involving tickets or contracts with companies. Never before has there been a case of stealing money meant for wages."

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While it seems inevitable that GERB will win the October 27 snap parliamentary elections, the situation at the bottom, around the 4% parliament entry threshold, is rather curious, SegaBG.com says. The breakthrough of the Velichie (Grandeur) party in June showed that nothing should be taken for granted, all kinds of surprises are possible; and other would-be factors are now warming up. In this sense, voters' apathy is inconsistent with what promises to be a very interesting election, says the author, Diyan Bozhidarov. The analysis is titled "The Night Is Pregnant with More Grandeur."

It goes on to say that it will be a historic election because pollsters predict that two MRF entities (MRF: Movement for Rights and Freedoms) will make it into Parliament. There is also another reason for the potentially historic status of the upcoming vote. A record nine entities may enter the legislature. Such multi-coloured representation of the people would be a celebration of democracy if it was not primarily due to an expectedly low voter turnout, which would make it easier for parties to reach the 4% mark, the story says.

MECh (Morality, Unity, Honour) is the party that seems to stand the best chance of mirroring Velichie's rise, according to the author. If MECh really becomes a second example after Velichie, it will inspire all kinds of businesspeople and politicians of smaller calibre to believe that they, too, can earn parliamentary representation (previously unthinkable), provided they do some hard work for it. If Velichie, MECh or others make it, this will be crucial for whether a government is formed, and how, regardless of whether they work jointly or separately for that purpose, the analysis says.

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Political apathy is something normal in a society in which people are offered the same concoction over and over again. You may love meatballs, but you can't have them every day, a signed comment in 24 Chasa says five days into the campaign for the October 27 early parliamentary elections. According to the author, Georgi Banov, the issue can be resolved for a price of BGN 300 million maximum. This is not too much, compared to the expenses of the government, he argues. Assuming that there are 6 million eligible voters (based on voters' lists which have not been set right for more than 30 years), everyone could be paid BGN 50 as an incentive to go to the polls, and that's it, Banov suggests with irony. Everyone would have a reason to cast their ballot: the poor would be able to repay their debt to their grocer, and the rich would get a free lunch from the government.

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

A solution in the Middle East hinges on victory over Russia, former Bulgarian defence minister Velizar Shalamanov told Bulgarian National Radio. He said: "Russia has an interest in an escalating conflict in the Middle East because it diverts political attention from Russia's aggression in Ukraine. It also diverts resources to support Israel instead of supporting Ukraine." According to Shalamanov, the Middle East crisis is part of the big war which Russia started against the free world by invading Ukraine. "What has happened in the Middle East can only be understood in the context of Russia's war against the free world, a war in which there is the UN Charter and the support from the free world for Ukraine, on one side, and there is Russia, backed by Iran, North Korea, China, on the other side. It was in this context that the Middle East conflict flared up." It is a very complicated setup, and the way out is through victory over Russia to make it clear that a permanent member of the UN Security Council must not be at the root of a major war, Shalamanov said.

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The 79th Session of the UN General Assembly, which ended on Monday, particularly its last week, dedicated to high-level debates, revealed like never before the division, the powerlessness and the inability of the world body to face the challenges that are shaking the world, says a comment in Trud. Between September 24 and 30, the important debates in New York clearly showed the ineffectiveness of the organization which is supposed to make sensible and correct decisions for the well-being of the world, the author Rumen Mihailov says. He argues that the United Nations has been unable to make itself heard on big conflicts. The 79th General Assembly Session showed a widening gap between the South and the West. Mihailov believes that the big question is whether a new world war is necessary for a new world order to emerge.