site.btaMedia Review: March 17

All news media cover Sunday’s tragedy in North Macedonia, where a fire during a concert at a nightclub in Kocani claimed at least 59 lives and left 155 injured. Most of the victims were aged between 14 and 25. 

NORTH MACEDONIA NIGHTCLUB FIRE

Both Trud and 24 Chasa report that a student at the American University in Blagoevgrad (Soutwestern Bulgaria) is among the victims of the fire. The University said that Stefanija Aleksova from Kocani was in her second year of studies there. 

Segabg.com said that 14 of the injured are being treated in hospitals in Sofia, Plovdiv, and Varna. The Bulgarian Embassy in Skopje has informed the family members of these patients that Bulgaria is ready to provide them with transportation and accommodation during the hospitalization period. Bulgarian hospitals are ready to accept more injured after coordination with North Macedonia’s authorities.

Telegraph writes on its front page that Bulgaria saved 13 of those injured in the fire. 

Duma.bg reports that the fire was caused by pyrotechnics for lighting effects. Four persons have been arrested, including the nightclub’s owner.

Mediapool.bg has an analysis by Ivan Radev titled, “Tragedies Repeat Themselves Because Corruption Kills. Literally”. The author recalls the tragedy at the Colectiv club in Romania in 2015, which led to protests and social changes in the country after an investigation by Gazeta Sporturilor journalists revealed that the local authorities had neglected the fire safety rules, and the hospitals treating the injured had purchased diluted disinfectants, which resulted in many deaths from infections. The causes for the fire in the nightclub in Kocani are yet to be determined, but very likely it will turn out that someone had turned a blind eye to irregularities. The tragedy happened on the night when all eyes were on Serbia, where hundreds of thousands protested against corruption that kills, following the November 2024 collapse of the renovated canopy of the railway station in Novi Sad that killed 15 people.

Bulgarian National Radio quoted North Macedonia’s Interior Minister as saying that behind the tragedy were grave compromises and corruption schemes at the Ministry of Economy and the Protection and Rescue State Agency, but specified he was referring to their previous leaderships. The nightclub lacks a license and did not have the capacity for so many clients. People who survived the tragedy told media that the nightclub stuff initially instructed them to stay put, because the fire would be put out, but then told everyone to run. The only exit from the building was a small door, and the running people trampled on each other to escape.

According to Trud’s information, the nightclub had no fire safety system and only two fire extinguishers. At the time of the tragedy, the back exit from the building was locked, leaving some 500 people with only one exit from the burning building. 

bTV’s morning show quoted residents of Kocani as saying that the nightclub’s roof was made of an easily flammable material prohibited in North Macedonia long ago. Inside, the soundproofing materials and those for visual effects were again easily flammable. The pyrotechnics used were not licensed, permitted or managed by authorised companies.

On Bulgarian National Radio, Assoc. Prof. Milen Ivanov, security expert and former vice-rector of the Academy of the Ministry of Interior, commented that the use of pyrotechnics is the responsibility of the club's owner and the concert's organizer. There have been no such serious incidents in Bulgaria since the tragedy at Sofia's Indigo disco club in 2001, Ivanov recalled. There is always a risk, so when such an establishment is built, the materials must be of the relevant standards of non-flammability, said the expert, according to whom due control is exercised in Bulgaria. There must also be enough exits from the building, he added.

Bulgarian National Television’s (BNT) morning show was dedicated to the tradegy in Kocani and how Bulgaria is helping. Atanas Velichkov, editor-in-chief of the Macedonian website Tribuna, told BNT that Bulgaria's response was swift and organised. Assistance has also been provided by Serbia, Croatia, Romania, Greece, and Turkiye. Medical teams from the Czech Republic, Israel and Belgium are expected on Monday, he said. Peaceful protests are planned for the day in Skopje, Kochani, and Strumica. "If there is no justice, people's anger will pour out," Velichkov noted. BNT had reporters stationed in Kocani and in front of the Bulgarian hospitals with Macedonian patents to provide the latest information.

POLITICS

On BNT’s morning show, former interior minister Ivan Demerdzhiev commented on last week’s ruling of the Constitutional Court outlawing the election of 16 MPs and getting a ninth party - Velichie - in Parliament within a case challenging the legality of the October 2024 parliamentary elections. In his words, finally an institution did its job in the electoral process. The Constitutional Court was able to show the tip of the iceberg because it is limited by a number of rules and possibilities both in terms of not being able to uncover the bought and controlled vote within such a process, and because the Court is limited by the reasoning in the claims on which the case was opened and by the evidence it can work with. He stressed that numerous crimes were committed in the whole electoral process, which the prosecution service did not take into account. Before that, the leadership of the Interior Ministry did not counter this criminal activity. "Suddenly, the prosecution woke up [last week] and forgot that it has no authority to investigate the activities of either the Constitutional Court or its experts in the course of an ongoing case," he argued. 

BNT also interviewed on the same topic lecturer in political communications Prof. Rosen Stoyanov and journalists Silviya Velikova and Mira Badzheva. According to Velikova, the Constitutional Court did not become a political player through its ruling; it was simply doing its job, and the politicians criticizing it are, strangely, not familiar with the Court’s work. According to Badzheva, the situation is dangerous for statehood, because people have lost trust in the State as their representative and protector. Prof. Stoyanov hopes the situation to normalize somewhat and reason to prevail, after the wave of emotions and absurd statements by politicians, because people’s trust has hit rock bottom and they now judge not based on expert opinions but on personal feelings.

On Nova TV’s morning show, Central Election Commission member Tsvetozar Tomov commented that he has personal suspicions that entire polling stations were bought at the last parliamentary elections, as has been speculated in the public space. [Due to wrong counting in more than 2,200 polling stations, the Constitutional Court ruled a change in the election results, which led to the entry of the Velichie party in Parliament.] However, Tomov believes that is not the biggest problem. "The tally sheets in cases where such suspicion seems justified are usually clean and nothing can be understood from them. That is, perhaps, the more significant problem. We do not have the tools to make such checks, so I express my personal concerns on this topic as an ordinary person," Tomov stressed.

Nova TV approached political analysts Tsvetanka Andreeva and Milen Lyubenov for a comment on the impact of the Constitutional Court's ruling on the ruling majority. According to Andreeva, the Government will have to be more flexible and resort to floating majorities on certain priority matters: the anti-crisis actions, eurozone entry, and adoption of the 2025 State Budget Bill. Lyubenov thinks that if Democracy, Rights and Freedoms - MRF withdraws its support from the majority, it will be "difficult to avoid damage." According to him, if Velichie, Vazrazhdane, and MECh interact, they can submit votes of no confidence, which would block Parliament's work.

On bTV, lecturer in constitutional law and GERB-UDF’s nominee for Constitutional Court judge Orlin Kolev said that if appointed, he would be conservative and adhere to the Court’s established practice. The function of the Constitutional Cour is to arbitrate disputes such as the one on the elections' legality. He added that such cases are likely to increase in number in the future. "So it would be good to have a detailed procedure. And on the evidence gathered so far, there is no need for a complete annulment of the vote," he said, adding that there were no grounds to inspect all polling stations.

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Trud has an interview with Anton Stankov, one of the candidates for National Ombudsman. He says that he will react to any violation of citizens’ rights, and every Bulgarian should know they can rely on the Ombudsman. Stankov has been nominated by the Dimitry Panitza Bulgarian School of Politics. He was justice minister in Simeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha's cabinet between July 2001 and August 2005.

ECONOMY

Trud has an interview about the 2025 State Budget Bill with Assoc. Prof. Grigor Sariyski from the Economic Research Institute with the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Asked whether the expected increase of revenues from VAT by over 33% is realistic, he commented that such a rise would be realistic only if the turnovers in Bulgaria’s economy somehow increase by one-third. However, the budget drafted by the Finance Ministry does not even hint at such a jump. The increase would rather be around 9%, and it is obvious that the difference cannot be covered by the usual talk about “bringing the grey economy into the light”. According to the expert, the VAT revenues are overestimated in order to get the planned deficit down to the 3% of GDP required for entry in the eurozone. This harbours a serious risk of non-implementation and promotes the use of exotic practices for formally bringing the budget deficit within the norm. He expects the year to end with yet another campaign for cutting investment projects, transferring spending to the new year, and so on.  

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Capital.bg writes that after the war in Ukraine broke out, industrial metal prices soared to record highs. However, the situation has calmed considerably since then: aluminium is now 33% cheaper than its 2022 peak, while copper has fallen by 15%. This all comes as a result of economic instability and weak demand in Europe. This is also evident in the 2023 reports of the largest companies in Bulgaria's metallurgy sector. Seven out of ten companies report a drop in turnover, while half are operating at a loss. On average, their revenues are down by around 12%, while average net profits are two-thirds lower. There hasn’t been a change in the top 10 ranking of these companies, only their revenues have dropped. Aurubis Bulgaria is still first but registered a drop by nearly 14% in its revenues to BGN 7.3 billion. Next is Sofia Med, part of the Greek group Viohalco, with a turnover exceeding BGN 1.7 billion, which is a slight decrease from the previous year despite the increase in copper alloy production by 2%. In third place is Promet Steel with over BGN 1 billion in revenues. The company, owned by Ukraine’s Metinvest, increased its production by 18% but registered a loss of nearly BGN 6 million.  

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24 Chasa has an interview with lawyer Nikolay Tsvetanon, head of the Association for Responsible Non-Banking Lending, who warns people not to trust companies offering a loan without an income check.

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Telegraph has an interview with Bogomil Nikolov, head of the Active Consumers Association, who talks about the unreported use of palm oil in food products. 

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24 Chasa writes on its front page that due to the excessive tourism after the COVID-19 pandemic, high taxes and restrictions sour Bulgarian tourists’ trips in Europe.

Telegraph warns of significant traffic jams expected on the roads to the Black Sea coast this summer due to repair works.

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Trud writes on its front page that the flu has been replaced by seasonal allergies. At this time of the year, specialists report a significant increase in allergies caused by pollen, including hay fiver, allergic rhinitis, pollinosis, and persistent conjunctivitis. These allergies affect one-third of the population, and the problem is underestimated by patients, doctors say.