site.btaMedia Review: April 2

The upcoming vote in Parliament on the first motion of no confidence in the Government of Rosen Zhelyazkov dominates Wednesday's news media. The motion was tabled by three opposition parties (Vazrazhdane, MECh, and Velichie) over the Cabinet's foreign policy.

POLITICS

In an interview for 24 Chasa, Rossen Stoyanov, head of Political Analyses and Forecasts at the Gallup International Balkan polling agency, says he expects Wednesday’s vote of no confidence in the Government to be rejected, because it would be absurd for the Democracy, Rights and Freedoms (DRF) party to not back the Cabinet. Everyone knows the no-confidence motion will fail; its purpose is free publicity for the opposition’s criticism and positions on the eurozone and the EU, he argues. According to him, the threshold for entry in Parliament should be raised to 5% for parties and 7% for coalitions to stop “political shamans” from becoming MPs and instead have true representatives of the different groups in society. 

On Bulgarian National Radio, political analyst Mehmed Mehmed commented that the no-confidence motion will fail. "It is clear that the pro-Russia parties will not get support for it. But the circus will be complete." Mehmed does not expect a no-confidence motion tabled by the opposition Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB) group to garner enough support in the future either. "They will hardly be able to attract the diametrically opposite part of the opposition," he noted. According to Mehmed, it was a more correct political move for the DRF to withdraw its support for the Cabinet and join the opposition. The members of Ahmed Dogan’s formation will lose more if there are early elections soon, the political analyst predicted. He believes that the voters they have lost will probably turn to GERB and MRF - New Beginning. Mehmed does not expect a new formation to be created by DRF members, but does not rule out a transfer of people to MRF – New Beginning. "There are no such strong cadres who can create an entity generating public trust," he explained. 

Telegraph has an interview on the same topic with sociologist Assoc. Prof. Tatyana Bourdzheva. According to her, the Cabinet has been a minority one from the very start. 

On Bulgarian National Television's morning show, the no-confidence motion was discussed by Assoc. Prof. Haralan Aleksandrov, social anthropologist, Assoc. Prof. Petar Cholakov, sociologist and political expert, and lecturer and political expert Strahil Deliyski. According to Cholakov, the useful move of the DFR has already been played, and it is to be a spare tire of the Government. Deliyski expressed the opinion that Dogan's DRF suffers from a defect related to the fact that they think politics in 2025 with the brain of 1990, because "the raison d'être and the logic of the political process of then and now are different." Aleksandrov noted that what is happening in the DRF seems like a fight for survival rather than some ingenious strategy. "It is very sad to observe the processes of party and personality decline, but these are the facts we notice. This is the great skill of politicians, to leave the stage before their sunset becomes public and visible. There is no doubt that Ahmed Dogan is a man with many political qualities, with many sins, but also with many merits. He could have had a more beautiful sunset, but that is the situation." 

On Nova TV's morning show, the no-confidence motion was discussed by political analyst Stoycho Stoychev and election expert Stoil Tsitselkov. According to Stoychev, the "golden finger" is relevant when electing a cabinet and constructing a majority. When a cabinet has to be overthrown, it is important whether the opposition can mobilise support, not the "golden finger". "Today's vote of no confidence will prove that the parties outside the Government are looking in different directions," he noted. Tsitselkov pointed out that the no-confidence vote is rather a process of strengthening the Government and counting the pro-Kremlin sentiment in Bulgaria. Stoychev believes that the impression is given that Delyan Peevski is in the Government, but in reality he does not control it 100%. If the leader of MRF - New Beginning supports the majority, it is good that this happens in public, the expert noted.

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Trud has an interview with political psychologist Rosen Yordanov, who comments on the cases of opposition politicians being legally prosecuted becoming more frequent recently, such as the Istanbul Mayor in Turkiye, the French far-right leader Marine Le Pen, and Romanian far-right politician Calin Georgescu. "The common thing is the ‘Trump’ trend that has imposed itself - of vulgarity, of arrogance, of trampling on long-established norms of rules and dos and don'ts, if you will, of how far rules can be broken and the boundaries of the notion of democracy and decency in politics stretched. Those boundaries have obviously been stretched very seriously and now every politician, at least in those countries that are experiencing very strong domestic political tensions, is taking advantage to reap domestic political dividends in an unseemly way. I will not include here the processes that are taking place in Bulgaria, because they have nothing in common." He specifies that before Donald Trump became President of the USA, the left-liberals in that country and around the world had begun to "seriously rape these boundaries of normalcy, only in their own way, in their own style, utterly hypocritical, proclaiming themselves the moral last resort." With these actions, they actually opened the door to extremism. In the expert's words, theirs was another type of political hypocrisy masquerading as humane values, as democracy. "Democracy has in fact been raped for a long time, and for me this process also has financial and economic dimensions and layer shifts that are yet to be seen," he tells the daily. 

On Bulgarian National Television's morning show, former European Commissioner Meglena Kuneva commented on Marine Le Pen's conviction. According to Kuneva, that will affect the dynamics of Le Pen's party. "French justice has proved that it can be strong and impartial," Kuneva noted. "I would like to remind you that two excellent presidents have been convicted of corruption - Jacques Chirac and Nicolas Sarkozy. What the European Parliament needs to do is to find enough strength within itself, like any political family, to prevent such examples from happening. Funds that are earmarked for European politics should not go to maintaining party offices," she added.

ECONOMY

Mediapool.bg reports that in a response to its inquiry, the Ministry of Energy said it cannot commit to a deadline for the completion of the deal under which the equipment from the terminated Belene nuclear power plant (NPP) project will be sold to Ukraine. The key terms of the contract, developed by an international legal consultant, are currently being negotiated, the Ministry said. The price has been updated and is slightly above the minimum BGN 1.2 billion set by Parliament. The sale and purchase will include the steam generators, despite some political insistence that these be retained as a backup for Kozloduy NPP's operation. The Energy Ministry further told Mediapool that in order to use the steam generators at the Kozloduy NPP, storage has to be arranged until their eventual installation, and at the moment there is nowhere to store them. Also, technological changes are needed at the Kozloduy NPP site, which will cost money, and besides, the current steam generators of Bulgaria's single nuclear power plant have another 30 years of service life. "Never mind that one of the steam generators of Unit 6 has leaked several times in the last two years and the reactor had to be shut down to plug the cracked pipes," the article reads. According to experts, the conclusion of the deal with Ukraine can hardly happen before the conclusion of a peace agreement or at least a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, because hardly anyone would transport such important and expensive equipment amid air strikes from both sides.

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Trud’s front-page story reads that the tax authorities are putting traders of cars, fertilizers and some building materials under the microscope. By order of Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova, the list of goods risky for the state budget, for which it is necessary to declare their transport in advance when importing, exporting or transporting in the interior of the country, has been supplemented. The aim is to prevent VAT and profit tax evasion on the sale of these goods. New and used road vehicles, excluding those for the transport of ten or more persons including the driver, have been added to the list. This includes racing cars, as well as vehicles designed for travel on snow or for transporting people on golf courses and other similar vehicles. Until now, the list of risky goods mainly included foodstuffs, such as dairy products, meat and tomatoes, but now non-foodstuffs have also been added.

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Segabg.com presents research by global trade credit insurer Allianz Trade (formerly Euler Hermes) showing that bankruptcies in Bulgaria will rise by 2% this year and next as more companies are struggling to pay their debts and the problematic sectors are growing. Bulgarian companies' repayment terms are lengthening, and the specifics in Bulgarian legislation, which make bankruptcy procedures too complicated and lengthy, complicate matters even more. The report lists as problematic the transport sector, where repayment terms maintain a level of over 90-120 days, construction and agriculture, where the delays exceed 120 days, and export.  The analysts warn all Bulgarian companies that they are operating in a situation of increased risk, because potential difficulties may exist not only in the listed sectors, but for any export-oriented business.

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Capital.bg writes that Bulgarian society remains sensitive to the topic of climate change but also has limited information on the specific policies and the existing mechanisms for the transition to climate-neutral economy. This is the main conclusion from two nationally representatives surveys commissioned by the European Foreign Policy Council within a multi-annual project for observing the effect and public attitudes to the European Green Deal in Bulgaria. The surveys together with analyses were presented at a news briefing at the end of March marking the end of the project. The surveys were conducted in 2021 and 2023 in the form of over 40 interviews with representatives of the most affected businesses in Bulgaria; there is also a new survey from 2024 on how informed the public is. The surveys, conducted by Alpha Research, show that approximately 70% of Bulgarians consider climate change a very serious issue that should be a priority in parties’ political programmes. Yet, 76% are not familiar with Bulgarian climate change policies and 31% know nothing about the Recovery and Resilience Plan. The European Green Deal is most often associated with clean air and transition to renewable energy sources. Despite these positive attitudes, over 80% of Bulgarians expect green policies to result in more expensive goods and services, which indicates public concern over the transition’s socioeconomic impact, particularly in the context of the inflation pressure in the last years.

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Dnevnik.bg presents data for 2024 compiled by the National Centre for Information and Documentation, according to which the number of foreign students in Bulgaria has doubled in a decade. They account for 8.6% (15,737) of all students. The majority come from third countries, nearly 9,000, while close to 7,000 are from EU Member States. The largest group of foreign students come from Greece (20%), followed by the UK (14%) and Ukraine (11%). International students from all EU countries except Malta study in Bulgaria.

HOME AFFAIRS

Mediapool.bg reports that a video published by the BOEC civil association on Wednesday shows evidence of a counter-smuggling police raid in Plovdiv (South Central Bulgaria) getting sabotaged though a phone call. The video shows suspects receiving a warning by phone, then running away from the crime scene, where a heavy-duty truck is filled with thousands of boxes of contraband cigarettes. BOEC released this video a day after publishing a WhatsApp chat between police offices showing how an attempt was being made to block the police operation through a direct order from the higher-ups in the chain of command. This comes after a large-scale leak of unofficial police information to BOEC that has caused a scandal dubbed MRV-leaks [MVR is the Bulgarian acronym of the Ministry of Interior]. 

Dnevnik.bg quotes GERB leader Boyko Borissov as commenting on Wednesday morning that Interior Minister Daniel Mitov "should sweep away everyone connected with this smuggling case." "I have not spoken to him, this is my personal opinion. Anything that dealt with smuggling should be swept out of the Ministry of Interior," Borissov told reporters. On Tuesday, CC-DB said they would demand the resignation of Interior Minister Mitov "if he continues to sweep [under the rug] instead of investigating." Mitov commented that the case had already been investigated by his predecessor Atanas Ilkov and materials had been sent to the head of the Directorate General for Combating Organized Crime and the prosecution service.

On bTV's morning show, MP of CC-DB and former economy minister Bogdan Bogdanov commented that CC-DB will indeed demand Mitov's resignation if he does not take adequate measures and these problems continue to pile up. "Recently, scandals in the Ministry of Interior have become more frequent. They show the essence of the problem - certain groups and criminal organisations are being shielded," Bogdanov commented. "This happened last November - 5 months ago. This [WhatsApp chat] communication is only coming out now, why? Because most likely these employees are currently being repressed and we will meet with them this week to find out all the facts. It is not normal that when we have such an offence for nearly BGN 8 million - a truckload of cigarettes caught, we receive information after 5 months," Bogdanov commented.

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24 Chasa reports on its front page about a petition by parents requesting public access to the CCTV in school classrooms so that they can check on their children. The petition has been gaining popularity online for a month, prompted by problems in the school environment, such as problematic pupils and teachers. However, school principals recall that this would be illegal, because even a simple photo requires written consent; the CCTV footage would be accessible for anyone in the country, trampling on the rights of teachers and children alike. The Education Ministry said it has not received such a petition. A project of the Ministry under the Security National Programme aims to increase security by equipping schools with more cameras and even panic buttons.