site.btaMedia Review: July 12

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Cutting Disability and Early Retirement Pensions, But Still Thinking How is the title of an analysis carried out by 24 Chasa, referring to the passage of the public social insurance budget for 2023 on first reading. The arguments in support: a full analysis of the pension system and the purging of its inappropriate social payments, so that any imbalances in it can be removed. The only changes proposed are to raise the minimum social security contributions by BGN 70 and to align them with the minimum wage of BGN 780. That is what the second year of maternity pay will be. In the case of pensions, there is only a 12% update according to the Swiss rule, which pensioners received on 7 July. For the whole year, a record BGN 19 billion will go for pensions, BGN 10 billion of which will come from taxes. The programme of the Denkov-Gabriel government plans that payments of a social nature will be removed from the National Social Insurance Institute and will go to the Social Assistance Agency, said Iskren Arabadzhiev from the Continue the Change – Democratic Bulgaria (CC-DB). This, he said, would naturally reduce the deficit in the system. In the 2024 budget the incumbent intend to introduce a formula and mechanism for determining the maximum social security income.

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The CC-DB, GERB and MRF are surprisingly overhauling their Attorney General mechanism, writes Sega. The daily quotes the Justice Minister as saying that the procedure cannot be suspended. CC-DB, GERB and the Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) have surprisingly and quietly decided to overhaul the core of their own judicial reform - the mechanism for investigating the prosecutor general, and only a month after its adoption. After the Supreme Court of Cassation (SCC) randomly selected Judge Daniela Taleva as an ad hoc prosecutor to investigate acting Prosecutor General Borislav Sarafov, the three parties introduced amendments to the Judiciary Act that change the way an investigator is appointed under the new mechanism. Representatives of the three political formations, who have already declared that they are writing and will adopt amendments to the Constitution, have signed up to an idea to create a new system, different from the Unified Court Information System (UCIS). If the text is adopted, the selection of an ad hoc prosecutor will be separated from the rest of the cases whose random allocation takes place in this system.

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24 Chasa features an interview with former social minister Ivan Neykov on the subject of the allegedly dwindling Bulgarian nation, demographics and the causes for more and more single parent families and such with one or two, not more, children. Higher incomes today allow people to raise a child alone, Neykov argues, compared to years when those of even two did not suffice. Also, the number of couples living together without formal marriage is growing, possibly as a reaction to the years of public pressure when to do so was considered something bad and dangerous. Neykov is positive that the desire for less children is motivated by the fact that the parents want to give them the best, i.e. the fewer the children the more support they will get.

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Genoveva Petrova of the Alpha Research polling agency and political analyst Hristo Panchugov comment in bTV's "Face to Face" show on the strength of the 'meshing' between the incumbent parties. The parties' inability to find a way to do the job they were sent to do quite logically makes people angry with them, said Petrova. If until now it was possible to imitate some activity, the last few years it has been extremely difficult, said Panchugov. In his words, politics has turned out to be one of the few places where experience matters. And Bulgarian politicians are slowly gaining experience, he added. In his words, the problem is not in the so-called assembly, but in the initial acceptance that some people have come together despite their contradictions. This should be told with the successes, Panchugov added. He said the public sees "some people who have gotten themselves into technicalities." And this further creates the feeling that nothing is happening, Panchugov said. Petrova explained why there is an outflow of voters from CC-DB. Before that she noted that this outflow was expected given the general government. "First, because support for all formations was concentrated around the hard supporters. The CC-DB, and more particularly the CC, relied much more on the periphery. In the case of the CC, the easiest thing to do was to refuse support," she explained. Part of the outflow is also due to the scandals that were produced, Petrova said, giving the example of the leaked recording. While GERB at least gave the impression that they were trying to find a solution, in the face of the CC we had a formation saying why it would not enter into government with GERB, the sociologist summed up.

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The battle for the management of BGN 7 billion of the NHIF continues, writes Trud news. The battle over who will manage the BGN 7 billion of the NHIF continues with the announcement of a new procedure after the election of the head of the fund failed today. With the votes of GERB, CC-DB and There Is Such a People (TISP), the parliament rejected the only remaining candidate for the NHIF governor. The BSP's nomination Zheni Staikova received support only from the Socialist Party and Vazrazhdane. Hours before the vote, the other candidate, Ivanka Dineva (nominated by GERB), withdrew. Until the last moment she was considered the favourite, although the CC-DB did not endorse her. According to sources of Trud news from the medical circles, Dineva was forced to withdraw her candidacy by GERB after the CC-DB requested this from the party leadership. The reason for the distrust of Dineva by the PP was a scandalous probe against the head of Shalom prof. Alexander Oscar. Dineva as the head of the capital's treasury raised tendentious and unfounded accusations against the ophthalmologist, which were rejected by the court. Dineva herself was dismissed from her post. GERB-UDF is expected to propose another candidate for the head of the NHIF, who will be acceptable to the CC-DB. One of the names released is that of former health minister Ilko Semerdzhiev. The chairman of the NHIF in practice manages the budget of the fund, which is BGN 7 billion.

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"Unless MPs want to break the assembly, let them provide peace of mind to the health sector. Political battles are like that. It is difficult to be in charge of this type of body. (BGN) 7 billion is already the money that will be managed. The future manager will have to be able to keep balances and not tip the scales in one direction or another. "This comment was made in an interview with BNR by health economist Arkadi Sharkov of the Expert Club for Economics and Politics. On the topic of the election of a new NHIF president, Sharkov pointed out that it is "an element of agreement between the two major coalition political governments", but "there is obviously friction, nothing is a foregone conclusion." Local elections are coming. There will be logical demands as well as political ones, Sharkov pointed out on the health budget. He recalled that municipal hospitals are in a poor financial situation.

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Trud news features an interview with one of the founders and former leader of the Union of Democratic Forces and now Chairman of the Zashtita (Defence) Union of Patriotic Forces Petar Beron. Asked to comment on the dissent between the incumbent Government and the President on some points relevant to Ukraine in the wake of President Volodymir Zelenskyy's recent visit to Bulgaria, Beron said Radev should know that Bulgaria's foreign policy is determined by the government and in Europe he is obliged to act in accordance with the Bulgarian position. The president has no right to conduct his own foreign policy. On the matter of how the incumbent government was formed and why, Beron said that was made necessary by the fact that Bulgaria would not otherwise have received funds under the Recovery and Resilience Plan. Besides, he added, there are many such cabinets in Europe, only they have signed voluminous coalition agreements after months of negotiations. There was no need of such an agreement in Bulgaria because the two formations are very similar in their ideologies. The differences between them are rather on a personal plane.

SHOOTING STAR

"It's a so-called shooting star of larger dimensions. It induces light and sound effects. It is possible that the material from the falling body reached the earth," Lyubomir Iliev from the Institute of Astronomy of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences told BNT about the meteorite that fell in the country Tuesday night. In his words, this phenomenon is called a bolide. "There is no evidence of destruction or damage to buildings. Such large bolide are not so rare phenomena, they can be observed even during the day. They travel at speeds of up to 70,000 kilometers per hour, reach very high temperatures and break up," Lyubomir Iliev added. "If the difference from the light to the rumble is 3 minutes, the distance the meteor fell could be 300-400 km. We don't even know if it is in Romania," said Assoc. Prof. Nikola Petrov, who is the Director of the Space Observatory on Mount Rozhen. "Stone chunks of microparticles are asteroids when they move between planets, if they burn up in the atmosphere they are a meteor, if they reach the Earth's surface they are a meteorite," he explained. "From what I hear, it must be the size of a soccer ball.  All meteors start burning up about 100 kilometers from the ground," Petrov said. He recalled that a bullet, for example, travels at 1 kilometer per second, while the speed of a falling meteorite is 10-20 times faster. "Stone chunks burn up, that's why we see light. Between 25 and 30 thousand meteorites the size of an egg to a ball fall every year.

ECONOMY

24 Chasa carries an analysis by Prof. Ivan Todorov titled "The euro has been our currency for a long time, it just says "lev" on the paper" discussing the recent voting in Parliament of the motion for holding a referendum on Bulgaria's euro changeover. We have an obligation to adopt the common European currency and therefore we cannot introduce deadlines during which we will not do so, the professor says. The point of the currency board, introduced in 1997, was that the lev was pegged to the then German mark, and later to the euro. Therefore, since then, we have all been paying value in euros, and only the form, whether paper or electronic transaction, is conducted in leva. And the value of the currency, not the type of paper, is its essence. That is why the talk of how we are going to renounce our national identity and the proud Bulgarian lev ("lion" in Bulgarian) is empty talk - we have done so for over a quarter of a century. And I dare say that even after we change the form of the paper, we will still be Bulgarians. What's more, the economic benefits of joining the eurozone will keep more Bulgarians in Bulgaria and this will help preserve us as a nation, the professor argues, adding that the benefits of the changeover have been pointed out on numerous occasions.

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Hauliers again unhappy with tolls, threaten to protest, Trud news reports. Hauliers have once again expressed their dissatisfaction with the new higher tolls that came into force on 1 July. They are adamant that waiting at the border and the poor quality of the roads in the country do not suggest such high prices for the service. The regional ministry, for its part, has offered companies a 30% discount on toll roads in the country if they travel 3,000 km per month, and a 50% discount on tolls if they travel 6,000 km. The industry is demanding that the regional ministry should also address the problems with the compensatory tolls and that the changes should also apply to the fines already imposed. The business stresses that it defies all logic to impose fines of BGN 750 to BGN 2,500 for a violation of less than BGN 1. Moreover, in most cases, the carriers were not to blame for these violations. The industry stressed that they were in protest readiness.

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New tenders for road repairs under new rules, writes Mediapool.bg. Public procurement of the caretaker government for BGN 4 billion are heading towards termination, the Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC) found no violations. In the days when it became clear that the government of Galab Donev was going down in history expressly, with the elimination of almost all participants, about BGN 4 billion were allocated for road repairs for the next 4 years. Thus, the first task of the new Regional Minister Andrei Tsekov was to appoint an audit of the public procurement for road repairs of the caretaker government. This happened after the change of the Road Infrastructure Agency (RIA) leadership. Only Desislava Paunova remained on the board "to have continuity" in Tsekov's words. Today it is already clear that the next - the eighth in the last two years - public procurement will be announced for current road repairs under new rules. About a dozen complaints were filed with the CPC against the announced ranking by the previous management of the road agency. All of them were rejected as unfounded. The CPC found no violations in the procurement process by the authority. Now the new leadership of the road agency is on the move, and the hope of the people is that finally the road repairs started under GERB in 2020 and 2021 will be completed and the potholes on the roads will decrease.

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It is not normal for Bulgaria to import fruits and vegetables, Agriculture Minister Kiril Vatev said in the BNT studio. In his words, Bulgaria has the capacity to feed 30 million people, it has the potential, it has 40% of highly fertile areas, while almost all European countries have about 12% on average. "Therefore, this capacity should be unleashed and encouraged and developed. We need to be a net exporter of agricultural produce, as we were in the 1930s, as we were 35-36 years ago," Vatev explained. He also pointed out that the grain currently being produced will not remain in warehouses and will go out on the world market as it always has. Around 30% more has been left over from last year compared to previous years. Kiril Vatev stressed that Bulgaria is also behind in the digitalization of agriculture. A number of information systems do not correspond with each other and some are not complete. As an example, he gave the livestock sector, where there is a lot of tension due to poor planning in the short term, one-year plan.