site.btaMedia Review: November 29

HEADLINES

Duma reports that after Parliament’s seventh unsuccessful attempt to elect a chairperson on Thursday, Continue the Change said that they have expelled Daniel Lorer from its ranks and governing bodies. Duma writes that the party has also called for the resignations of Lorer and Yavor Bozhankov as MPs. The reason cited was the fact that they did not back There Is Such a People’s (TISP) candidate Silvi Kirilov, who fell three votes short of being elected this time. The topic has been widely covered by all media outlets. 

Capital Weekly’s latest issue, titled “The Schengen Effect”, says that Bulgaria and Romania are set to become full-fledged members of the Schengen area as of January 1, 2025. The abolition of internal land border controls is expected to bring significant benefits for business and society, boosting tourism and cross-border trade. However, bottlenecks at the borders with Romania and Turkiye are likely to persist due to long-standing neglect of the adjacent infrastructure, the media outlet writes.

24 Chasa’s top story says that while the state plans to screen 100,000 people for colorectal cancer over the next four years, a private foundation has already screened 93,381 Bulgarians in just three months, revealing a 14.2% positive test rate. The findings show that men are at higher risk. Every day, eight Bulgarians die from colorectal cancer, or some 2,760 people annually, the daily says, quoting Slaveyko Dzhambazov, who has presented the results. In Dzhambazov’s words, the high mortality rate is primarily due to late diagnosis.

On the topic of health, Telegraph leads with the headline, “Men with Schizophrenia Are More Likely [than Women with Schizophrenia] to Commit Homicide,” highlighting findings made by the daily following a recent incident in Southeast Bulgaria. The case involved a 34-year-old man with a mental illness who killed his father and attacked his mother with a metal pipe. Telegraph quotes former health minister Prof. Hristo Hinkov as saying that some mentally ill people who have committed crimes are released after recovering from psychosis, completing their compulsory treatment, and undergoing a new forensic psychiatric evaluation.

Trud writes that 84% of motorists in Bulgaria have admitted to using their smartphones while driving. The daily cites findings from a poll conducted by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the Union of Bulgarian Motorists in August-September among 2,356 drivers across the country. 

POLITICS

Mediapool.bg writes that Thursday’s drama deepened after Democratic Bulgaria announced that it would not support the expulsion of Bozhankov and Lorer from the Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) group. 

Speaking on the Bulgarian National Television’s morning programme, Ivaylo Mirchev of Democratic Bulgaria said that Bozhankov and Lorer will remain in the parliamentary group. “The fact that they had a different opinion, including on such a critically important vote, does not mean that they should not be part of our group," he said. “Expulsion is not the solution to these issues. Dialogue is,” Mirchev noted, adding that DB is united on this matter. He was adamant that the CC-DB coalition is not falling apart. 

When asked on Nova TV’s morning programme whether GERB is gloating over the processes within the CC-DB coalition, journalist Vladimir Yonchev argued that the party “regrets that things unfolded this way,” adding that “Borissov and GERB’s goal is to form a government with CC-DB.”

Trud writes that the ongoing deadlock in the National Assembly stems from an amendment to the rules of procedure for electing the Parliament chairperson. The original rule proposed by GERB-UDF required a candidate to secure more than half of the votes of the MPs present to be elected, and if no candidate achieved this in the first round, a second round would be held between the two candidates with the most votes, with the winner being the one who received the majority. Vazrazhdane’s amendment says that the candidate who receives more than half of the votes of the MPs present gets elected.

All print media outlets report that GERB have requested an interpretation from the Constitutional Court on whether the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), despite its expired mandate, can proceed with the election of a prosecutor general and the president of the Supreme Administrative Court.

Speaking on the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), Petar Slavov, lawyer and former MP of the civil quota of the Reformist Bloc, said that the potential expulsion of two MPs from CC-DB could create challenges for the coalition. Their seats would decrease to 35, becoming equal to Vazrazhdane’s, and the two groups would have to compete for the second government-forming mandate. 

The leader of GERB, the largest political force, Boyko Borissov, has already said that he would decline to act as prime minister-designate and would return the mandate unfulfilled, 24 Chasa recalls. 

As to GERB’s requests to the Constitutional Court, Slavov said that “what is currently happening will undoubtedly further delay a possible suspension, postponement, or termination” of the election of a new prosecutor general. With the election scheduled for January 16, Slavov argued that time is running out to stop the process. He also criticized CC-DB MPs for their “inaction and delay” in addressing these issues, adding that they should have sought the Constitutional Court’s opinion long ago not only on the interpretation but also on the constitutionality of certain provisions in the Judicial System Act.

In an analysis of past week’s political developments, Capital Weekly writes that the constitutional amendments passed by Parliament in December 2023 have made the election of a parliamentary leader a focal point of power struggles. This is due to the possibility of the National Assembly chairperson being chosen by the President as a caretaker prime minister. The issue of whether a caretaker prime minister other than Dimitar Glavchev could emerge has become central to the political system's stability, especially in light of controversies surrounding the election process before and after the October 27 snap elections and the impact of Glavchev’s cabinet on the performance of Delyan Peevski’s Movement for Rights and Freedoms – New Beginning. These dynamics lie at the heart of current clashes in Parliament.

Lawyer Velislav Velichkov, sociologist Genoveva Petrova, and constitutional law expert Orlin Kolev appeared on bTV’s morning programme in a segment titled “Hypotheses for Dealing with the Crisis in the National Assembly: Can a Government Formation Mandate Be Handed Without an Elected Parliament Chair?”

Capital Weekly has a story raising the question of “whether Delyan Peevski still runs the Interior Ministry through [former minister] Kalin Stoyanov”. 

AMBASSADOR OF THE STATE OF PALESTINE TO BULGARIA

24 Chasa has an in-depth interview with the Ambassador of the State of Palestine to Bulgaria, Nasri Abujaish, on the occasion of the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, November 29. The Ambassador discusses the October 7 Hamas attack, Israel’s subsequent military response, and the broader implications of the Israel-Gaza conflict for Palestinians in the West Bank.

The Ambassador says that the day seeks to raise awareness about “an issue - the Palestinian one - that has not been resolved yet and a people that still lives under occupation”. “The Palestinians will continue to fight until they achieve their freedom,” he adds.

“Israel is doing to the Palestinians what apartheid did to Black South Africans,” he says, adding that “there are roads in the West Bank with signs reading ‘no Arabs allowed’” and settlements encircled by walls, with “gates locked nightly by the occupier”.

The diplomat says that Israel enforces “two systems: one in the West Bank, a colonial, racist system, and another on the territory of Israel itself, governed by recently enacted laws targeting Palestinians living in Israel”. “Palestinians in Israel are discriminated against in employment and in the justice system. If an Israeli commits an offense, their case is dealt with by the police. If a Palestinian does the same, their case is handled by the military and they face court martial.”

Asked whether Palestinians are willing to live in a single state alongside Israelis, the Ambassador says that for the most part, Palestinians would agree - “but if this country is not Israel”. 

ECONOMY 

A story in Capital Weekly says that Sofia plans to invest BGN 200 million in new kindergartens and schools. These funds will come from the Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) and the state budget, but there is a risk that the money allocated under RRP may not materialize. The shortage of kindergarten places in the capital has been a long-standing issue, with over 10,000 children currently without a spot, the outlet says. 

Media outlets carry stories about the planned nearly 11% increase in natural gas prices starting in December and the proposed rise in water prices across 24 regions in the country, set to take effect on January 1, 2025.

HEALTH 

Citing the Health Ministry, Telegraph reports that nearly 316,000 pensioners have received the flu vaccine under a national programme aimed at protecting individuals aged 65 and older from seasonal flu and pneumococcal infections.

Trud features an interview with Lyubomir Spasov, who heads the Faculty of Medicine at Sofia University. 

CRIME 

All media outlets report that two Bulgarians accused of participating in a spying network that gathered surveillance on individuals and locations in the UK have pleaded guilty in a London court. The two are part of a group alleged to have spied for Russia between 2020 and 2023. The topic is also receiving widespread coverage in other media outlets.

Print media report on the increased police presence near major shopping centers prompted by recent incidents of violence involving minors committing public order offenses.

The dailies also write that Bulgarian customs officers have seized more than 200,000 contraband pairs of eyeglasses and sunglasses at the Kapitan Andreevo checkpoint on the border with Turkiye. The items were found in a van with Bulgarian registration, driven by a Turkish national.