site.btaMedia Review: February 7

ECONOMY – FOOD PRICES

Duma: "We are introducing a law on maximum surcharges on certain food products. In recent years, Bulgarian citizens have been shocked by yet another drastic increase in the prices of essential foodstuffs and services. For the last five years, according to the National Statistical Institute, inflation in the country has been 34%, and the hike in basic foodstuffs has reached 250%. Rice has gone up by 83%, fresh milk by 119%, eggs by 150% and butter by 112%, said BSP - United Left MP Nina Dimitrova.

She pointed out that prices in large retail chains differ significantly from those in European countries such as Germany, Vienna and Amsterdam. According to Dimitrova, this price hike is a catastrophy for some 800,000 pensioners and 700,000 "working poor".

"We are the first party to introduce such [draft] legislation in the National Assembly. It is important for the Bulgarian citizens because when we talk about prices, it concerns each one of us," said Socialist MP Gabriel Valkov.

He pointed out that pensions and wages have risen by only 60%  the last five years, while prices of basic products in the small consumer basket have increased by about 120%. "This is absolutely unacceptable to us. Urgent measures must be taken to solve this problem because the same goods in Bulgaria and Germany, in the same German retail chains, are twice as expensive here. This law is absolutely necessary and we are tabling it now," the Socialist was adamant.

"This is an outrageous increase in the prices of these food products, which is many times higher than the general inflation rate for this period. This calls for the State to intervene to protect its citizens and Bulgarian producers from this inflation, from this price rise, which is in fact an increase in greed," said Maya Manolova of the Left Alliance, who is one of the sponsors of the bill.

The law caps markups at 10% on 70 basic food items. The decision does not cap prices but markups because a direct price cap would hurt producers. "This would give the retail chains a powerful weapon to destroy Bulgarian food producers," Manolova said.

The markup caps will apply to retailers that sell food and have an annual turnover of more than BGN 10 million [EUR 5 million], which will not affect small businesses. The draft legislation also provides for strict penalties, which can reach up to three percent of the turnover of retail chains. According to the importers, similar rules are imposed in almost all European countries.

GRECO REPORT

Mediapool: Bulgaria continues to fail to implement key anti-corruption commitments made to the Council of Europe (CoE), including the adoption of rules to limit gifts to politicians and lobbying. This is according to a report by GRECO, the CoE's anti-corruption body.

The authorities in Sofia have satisfactorily implemented only seven of the twenty-eight GRECO recommendations. Of the recommendations that have not been implemented, eleven have been partially implemented and ten have not been implemented at all.

Bulgaria has made a number of major commitments without implementing them, including the regulation of lobbying and the adoption of a Code of Conduct for Public Office Holders. The coalition agreement also does not discuss this issue.

The code should oblige officials to undergo integrity training and impose a limit on the gifts they can accept.

The current anti-corruption legislation provides some rules on declaring expenses for training, travel and other payments worth more than BGN 1,000. There are no explicit rules governing the receipt of gifts.

It is important to ensure that any new rules on gifts and other benefits should be drafted to cover all categories of persons in senior government positions, including ministers, chief secretaries and members of political cabinets, the GRECO report said.

The other big problem is the regulation of lobbying, which has been stalled for years in the Justice Ministry. The last bill provoked a strong reaction from civil society organizations because it equated them with lobbyists, despite clear international standards

GRECO stresses the need to ensure that any new legislation on lobbying contains rules regulating the engagement of persons in senior government positions with lobbyists and other third parties seeking to influence executive decision-making, the anti-corruption body said.

It insists on guarantees that information on the purpose of these contacts, the identity of the persons with whom they've met and the topics of these meetings are systematically disclosed.

Commitments in the area of the judiciary also remain unfulfilled, following the Constitutional Court's annulment last year of the reform of the Prosecutor General's Office and the Supreme Judicial Council.

In the Ministry of the Interior, the situation is also not good, as police officers still have no guarantees that they can independently investigate politicians who control the Interior Ministry.

So far, no new provisions have been introduced to guarantee the operational independence of the police in individual cases vis-à-vis the Ministry of Interior, the GRECO report said.

The recommendation is to ensure that all individual instructions addressed to the police from the political level are documented in writing. So far, no information has been provided to prove that this is the case, the report said.

GRECO notes that further progress will need to be made in Bulgaria over the next 18 months to achieve an adequate level of implementation of the anti-corruption recommendations.

GERB LEADER - MEDIA - GRANTS

Dnevnik: GERB leader Boyko Borissov claimed that journalists have received higher salaries than MPs and ministers and the media were better funded than the political parties. Borissov spoke in front of journalists Thursday and argued that media grants should be halted. Borissov explained that he had this information from the former head of the  private bTV television channel's news department, Anton Hekimian, who ran unsuccessfully for Sofia mayor on GERB's ticket and is currently a GERB municipal councillor.

Borissov's statement came against the backdrop of a hearing of Finance Minister Temenouzhka Petkova and a question on whether the budget, in which it was claimed there was a "hole" worth billions, was in surplus. On Wednesday, Mediapool.bg reported that the January budget was in surplus by BGN 500 million instead of a BGN 407 million deficit, citing three sources. It was this information that angered the GERB leader, who said there was no surplus and described the information that appeared as "a sleight of hand of those media outlets that receive huge grants".

Mediapool: Borissov, after having focused in the previous days on journalists' salaries and trying to make reporters seem richer than politicians, explained on Friday that the grants themselves are not a bad thing. But the problem was which media outlets were getting them.

"I'm not saying grants are a bad thing. However, it is noteworthy that only a certain type of media are under these grants. When you are a private media and you defend a political party and you get grants more than other political parties...The only thing I have said is that big money has gone into these media," Borissov said.

A day earlier, Borissov’s stance was different. The GERB leader claimed that no grants should be received. After he was reminded about the millions given out by his governments under European programmes to different media outlets, he said that this had been done “transparently, clearly and precisely”.

PETAR "THE EURO" PETROV 

24 Chasa leads with a story about Petar "the Euro" Petrov, a fugitive power broker in the judiciary, who has been wanted for a while. The Bulgarian services have asked eight countries in the Balkans about Petrov, who is an ex-investigator, but there is no trace of him.

The Interior Ministry and the services have also searched addresses in Sofia and Vratsa where they have information that he worked and lived, they have spoken to his relatives, checked for used phone numbers and periodically ask partner services whether Petrov has crossed borders, bought property or stayed in hotels. These include Greece, Turkey, Albania, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and North Macedonia.

This is what the MPs learned at a hearing in Parliament of the Ministry of Interior and the State Agency for National Security. A week ago, the Facebook group "The Bulgarian Elves" reported that it had intercepted Petrov using mobile phone data. This is how they found out that he was moving between Bulgaria and Greece, as well as what phone and smartwatch he was using and what websites he was visiting. The group consists of computer specialists who have been active for several months, collecting data and conducting investigations. That is the reason Continue the Change-Democratic Bulgaria initiated the hearing in Parliament.

The Interior Ministry has also sought information about Petrov through phone numbers - like the "elves", explained Deputy Interior Minister Lyubomir Yosifov. But he wasn't prepared to lay it out for MPs.

bTV quotes senior legal expert at the Anti-Corruption Fund Andrei Yankulov, who commented the topic on the TV channel's morning show. "He [Petrov] does not currently have a valid European Arrest Warrant, which is the basis for his search and detention in the Schengen Information System and through Interpol channels. If his whereabouts are established by an authority of another country, he will not be detained, but simply located and our authorities will be told where he is," said Yankulov.

"This means that practically the only place where he would be detained, if found, would be the territory of the country," he added.

The Interior Ministry has no information about the documents, which are allegedly from Petrov's personal archive, it transpired from the hearing in Parliament.

According to Yankulov, however, this is not the case and the Interior Ministry has the archive of the former investigator.

"At least in the part that contains documents from the Interior Ministry, because these are their documents. A separate question is why the institutions do not want to comment on the fact how and why these documents were in the possession of a person like Petrov, who has no relation to them and should not have them," Yankulov noted.

PSYCHIATRIC CARE

The media outlets focus on psychiatric care in Bulgaria and the rules surrounding compulsory mental treatment following an attack by a young woman with schizophrenia in Sofia, who went after people on the streets with a knife, managing to stab three men.

Trud: There is a need for legislative solutions related to the treatment of mentally ill people, Chair of the Parliamentary Healthcare Committee Prof. Kostadin Angelov told journalists.

"We intend to create a subcommittee on mental health within the [Parliamentary Healthcare] Committee, the discussion on the topic of mental health should be very big, including with the professional community, with which we can find the intersection for legislative changes," he added.

The living conditions in which patients are treated are extremely poor and the solution to this is found in the projects in the Recovery and Resilience Plan, and with a little financial help from the State, said Prof. Angelov [who has served as health minister 2020-2021 in Boyko Borissov's 3rd cabinet]. Earlier, during the Committee's meeting, Health Minister Silvi Kirilov said that renovations are to be carried out in 18 medical institutions with psychiatric wards, at a cost of BGN 17 million.

According to Prof. Angelov, mental health problems would be solved if the mental health strategy, which was adopted in 2021, was implemented. This strategy requires an extremely large financial resource, but it could be distributed in steps over the years so as not to put a burden on the State's financial system, he suggested.

Asked whether there are plans to introduce clinical pathways in the field of psychiatry, as announced at the beginning of last year, Prof. Angelov said that in his opinion this would be a mistake, because a significant percentage of patients with mental illness are not insured, which would deprive a large part of them of access to quality medical care and complicate their treatment. A large number of working psychiatrists, including the Expert Council on Psychiatry, are opposed to the introduction of clinical pathways for this reason, as well as additional reasons, he said.

We have a shortage of day hospitals and places where they monitor the effect of treatment and socialisation of patients. There were more than 200 patients living in large state psychiatric hospitals last year who are unable to socialize. The main problem is the lack of day hospitals and the investment of funds in this type of structures, added Prof. Angelov.

Maria Petrova, a medical law lawyer, told Bulgarian National TV that not everyone people don't like and who seems dangerous to us should be hospitalized in a psychiatric ward and this should not be allowed. The law provides clear criteria and gives a clear assessment of who should place a person into compulsory treatment. This is a judicial procedure that requires time, she said.

She explained that if there is a court decision about the period in which they must recieve compulsorily inpatient psychiatric care, patients cannot leave of their own volition.

According to the psychiatrist Dr. Veselin Gerev, until 1997 the treatment of psychiatric patients involved monitoring, actively seeking them out, treating and following up their condition, especially when they exhibited dangerous actions. After 1997, many of the articles in the Health Act and the Penal Procedural Code were dropped with the idea of respecting the rights of people suffering from mental disorders. Gerev argued, however that giving mental patients so many rights comes at the price of others being left unprotected and possibly becoming victims.

NOVA TV: In order for a person with a mental illness to be treated, they must give consent. And if they cannot decide for themselves or cannot give consent, they go through a court procedure. When the question of someone being involuntarily treated is put before the court, the time to respond is too long. The general practice in other countries is for courts to give an answer within a day, said former head of the Pirogov emergency hospital, Prof. Spas Spaskov.