site.btaMedia Review: January 20

POLITICS

Monday’s media prepare for the return of Donald Trump to the White House. The national television will have a dedicated studio to cover the inauguration ceremony live in the evening.

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A key political week on several fronts. This week, for the first time, the Council for shared governance will meet, Nova TV and other outlets report. There will be three representatives each from GERB-UDF, BSP-United Left and There is Such a People (TISP), as well as two representatives from the parliamentary group of Democracy, Rights and Freedoms (DRF), which supported the government.

The first session is expected to be devoted to personnel appointments in the executive branch: deputy ministers and regional governors. The promulgation of the amendments to the Judicial System Act, which prohibit a Supreme Judicial Council overstaying its term in office from electing the prosecutor general or the presidents of the supreme courts, is expected in the upcoming issue of the State Gazette, after it became clear on Sunday that President Rumen Radev had signed the relevant decree.

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BNR runs an interview with former justice and interior minister Ivan Demerdzhiev. 

"The Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) was presented with a fait accompli. They were forced to stop the procedure of electing a Prosecutor General. The SJC had many other grounds to stop this procedure. It is disappointing that the procedure had stopped through legislative amendments," he said, commenting on the blocked election of Borislav Sarafov as prosecutor general after the procedure scheduled for January 16 was cancelled due to legislative changes.

He said there were both moral and serious legal reasons for this to happen without legislative amendments, such as the negative public reactions.

“The cadres in the SJC have a totally different agenda from that of the public… Sarafov should have withdrawn his candidacy at a much earlier stage. He did not do so and this is telling," he said.

The changes in the Judicial System Act are very far from solving the systemic problems both in the judiciary and in the prosecutor's office in particular, Ivan Demerdzhiev believes.

"It is not enough to stop the election of Sarafov! Geshev was appointed and removed on political command. After him, the prosecution service continued to work in the same way. The same will happen after Sarafov,” the former justice and interior minister said.

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Political analyst Emil Sokolov predicted in an interview with BNR that this government's horizon is a year, a year and a half, and by then the relations between the coalition partners may have gone sour.

"What could create a problem in the government will not be geopolitics, because all parties are flexible, and this goes to the background while national interests are becoming important: the economy, the industry. The problem will come when there is some corruption scandal and they start tossing the hot potato at each other. Inevitably, there will be a corruption scandal because all four parties are using some power resources to resolve internal conflicts," the political analyst said.

ECONOMY

“We should stop being the Europe of reports and become the Europe of action," said Mariya Gabriel, former deputy prime minister and foreign minister (2023-2024) and current President of the Robert Schuman Institute, at the fifth edition of the Sofia Economic Forum, BGNES reports.

"We need to create a list of enterprises with the highest potential and find a way to support the growth of medium-sized enterprises. We need to make Europe an attractive continent," she said. 

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"The full accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the Schengen area is one of the most significant events for the region," said Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport and Communications Grozdan Karadzhov at the Sofia Economic Forum, Nova TV reports. 

"Over 18,000 Greek companies are already working in Bulgaria, with the total volume of investments exceeding EUR 3.5 billion euros," Karadzhov said. The Transport Minister stressed that the economy and regional development are inextricably linked to transport, energy and digital infrastructure. He said the Balkans still have a long way to go, but efforts in this direction are already underway.

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Government securities for BGN 300 million will be offered at the first auction on the domestic market for the year, the Bulgarian National Bank says on its website.

BNB will hold an auction for the sale of interest-bearing treasury bonds with a maturity of three years (1,095 days) of open type with a fixed interest rate of 2.75% and maturity in January 2028.

The first debt issue of the year is always seen as a test of market sentiment as Bulgaria started the year without a regular budget.

HEALTH

Epidemiologists are expecting a significant rise in flu incidence this week, BNT said. The districts of Vidin, Haskovo and Pazardzhik are already in an epidemic situation. The situation in Plovdiv is constantly monitored by the specialists of the Regional Health Inspectorate and the Regional Education and Training Department, who keep track of the number of absent students and provide adequate reports. The situation in Plovdiv is dynamic, but the district is still far from epidemic.

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The national radio reports that Monday is the second of two consecutive days for which the Sofia Municipality has introduced the so-called green ticket, which includes a travel pass for the entire Sofia public transport network and free parking in the buffer zones of the subway. This is being done to address forecast data on air pollution.

The measure is being introduced for the second time this year - a green ticket was also introduced on January 9 and 10 of 2025. The decision was taken in consultation with experts from the National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology, who said the expected potential for PM10 air pollution was due to forecast fogs forming in the morning hours in the valleys, trapping air pollutants in the low ground layers with accumulation.

SPORT

Victoria Velislavova won the gold medal in the individual sabre event in the women's U23 tournament for the European Cup held in Sofia, BNR reports. The Bulgarian sabre team of Mariela Georgieva, Beloslava Ivanova, Vasilena Krasteva and Kristina Milanova also reached the first place, leaving behind the strong teams of Italy and Spain.

Thirty-four fencers from nice countries took part in the women's individual sabre competition, and nine Bulgarians took to the lanes. Velislavova recorded six wins from her six matches in the groups. In the second round of eliminations she beat Leana Mironov from Estonia 15:10. In the semi-finals the Bulgarian defeated Payam Kumari of Italy 15:14. In the duel for a place in the final, Velislavova eliminated Olivia Eadie of Great Britain 15:14, and in the match for first place she triumphed after an impressive game over Sofija Prosina of Latvia 15:11.

MISCELLANEOUS

The crash between freight trains near Sofia on January 15, in which two people died and six were injured, was caused by a series of mistakes, the dismissed general manager of BDZ Cargo Ltd, Hristiyan Krastev, told bTV. According to him, mistakes were made by at least six people, including a station manager, a traffic manager and the engineers of a BDZ train.

At the last moment, when the accident could have been prevented or its consequences reduced, the power was cut at the wrong section of the railway network. Krastev pointed out that no emergency stops were attempted by either train, suggesting that their drivers had no idea of the danger until the last moment.

“I warned an accident would happen. There's more drinking than working at the stations,” Krastev said.

According to him, accidents may decrease when the modernization of railway infrastructure and rolling stock is completed. The aim should be to make the human factor of minimal importance.

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The national radio and other outlets report that the most significant word in Bulgaria in 2024 was "Schengen", according to the annual ranking of the literacy platform kaksepishe.com. About 37% of respondents voted for it. It was followed by "Dubai chocolate" with 26% and "sanitary cordon" with 24% of the vote.

This is the fourth year in a row that a ranking of the most mentioned personalities in the media has been presented. US President elect Donald Trump is in first place, followed by GERB leader Boyko Borissov (2023’s winner). After them are Russian President Vladimir Putin and MRF – New Beginning leader Delyan Peevski. The only figure in the Top 20 who is out of politics is that of tennis player Grigor Dimitrov.

For 2023, the most popular key words were "artificial intelligence", "assemblage" [the ruling coalition of unwilling partners CC-DB and GERB which fell apart before the agreed rotation of governance seats] and "Time Shelter" [Georgi Gospodinov’s acclaimed novel]. In 2022, the top positions went to "war", "inflation", "Ukraine" and "elections".

A total of 9,600,000 publications in 10,123 online information sources in Bulgarian for the period January 1 - December 31, 2024 were checked within the framework of the media analysis of the global media monitoring and analysis system Sensika.