site.btaMedia Review: January 28

POLITICS

Meeting on Tuesday with the first of a list of potential candidates for caretaker prime minister, President Iliana Iotova broke the protocol to show her deep respect for the institution represented by her guest, 24chasa.bg says. Iotova stood at the main entrance of the President's Administration to welcome National Assembly Chair Raya Nazaryan in an unprecedented show of courtesy to someone who is not a foreign leader on an official visit. Iotova's meeting with Nazaryan was apparently held in a new style too, judging from the fact that it lasted about an hour, the website says. The President had indicated that she expects any potential candidate declining a nomination for caretaker prime minister to give reasons for their refusal. Nazaryan did refuse, as expected, saying that it would be unfair to let a clearly political figure from parliament put together an interim cabinet, the report says.

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Greece, like Bulgaria, is considering changes to its election rules, and it might be useful to look at how the matter is approached in that country, 24chasa.bg says in an editorial. One of the proposals is that Greeks abroad should be allowed to vote for members of the national parliament by mail. The idea is to make the process easier for voters by sparing them the trouble and the cost of travelling hundreds of kilometres to the voting sections. The same option has been discussed in Bulgaria over and over, but has never been implemented. It is also worth noting that the Greeks are considering new election rules now, in January 2026, but the changes are intended for the parliamentary elections in 2027. In Bulgaria, the changes are being made at the last minute. And some of them are quite radical – such as introducing voting scanners which no one has seen yet, or adopting a machine-only voting technology, the website says.

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A new tipoff against acting Prosecutor General Borislav Sarafov can produce the first case to be handled by Anton Urumov, who was elected on December 12 as ad hoc prosecutor to investigate the chief prosecutor and his deputies, SegaBG.com reports. The tipoff claims that since the general assembly of the College of Prosecutors at the Supreme Court of Cassation (SCC) concluded on September 18, 2025, that Sarafov's powers as acting Prosecutor General ended on the strength of the law on July 21, 2025, a number of actions performed by him were crimes.

Citing an example, the source notes that on October 3, after the SCC's ruling on Sarafov's term in office became known, a statement was published on the website of the prosecution service accusing the SCC leadership of drawing the institution into an attempt to pursue illegitimate goals, manipulating public opinion, employing double standards and serving political objectives. In another development 10 days later, Sarafov demanded that Judge Miroslava Todorova withdraw from proceedings in which she was supposed to express her opinion on a case file related to the chief prosecutor. On yet another occasion, Sarafov insisted that all members of the Bulgarian Judges Association should be barred from the election of the ad hoc prosecutor to investigate the chief prosecutor.

The tipoff says: "Borislav Sarafov is using the de facto usurped official position and the institutional resources of the chief prosecutor and their administration in a way that affects the independence of judges, who are the main vehicle of judicial authority, and undermines the effectiveness of the mechanism for investigating the chief prosecutor, which has been created precisely to deflect the practical influence of the investigated subject."

ECONOMY & CLIMATE

A future cable on the Black Sea floor with the capacity to carry data at a speed of 500 terabytes per second will connect Bulgaria with Georgia and Turkiye by the end of 2027, and with Ukraine later, MediaPool.bg reports. It will create conditions for Bulgaria to become a digital hub and to attract investors for building data and AI centres, who can also seek out low-cost energy and will need an optical fibre facility to support their operations. This is stipulated in project KARDESA of UK telecom Vodafone and its Ukrainian company, which, in Bulgaria, will be implemented by privately-owned Novatel and state-owned natural gas transmission company Bulgartransgaz. The idea is to build a new submarine high-capacity cable system in the Black Sea which will create a cutting-edge digital corridor between Europe and Asia, the website says.

It quotes UK Ambassador to Bulgaria Nathaniel Copsey as saying that this is more than a technological project, more than a cable; it is groundwork for cooperation and development of the digital economy which will bring shared benefits for all countries along the route.

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"How to Build a High-Rise on Sofia's Narrowest Street" caps an article published on SegaBG.com, which argues that the Spatial Development Act is "a door in a field." The author, Tanya Petrova, writes that this law is subject to interpretations influenced by huge business interests. The most recent example, she says, transpired after Bogdana Panayotova resigned as Chief Architect of Sofia. In a letter sent last May to the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, Panayotova wondered: "How can it be that on a street 9 metres in width [...] a building on the more favourable side is 9 metres tall, in keeping with the legal standard, and a residential building across the street is 50 or 70 metres tall in stark violation of the standard, on the grounds that it is not a shadow-casting structure?"

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Following a series of major traffic accidents in recent days, Yordan Abadzhiev, Executive Director of the Union of International Haulers (UIH), tells Trud.bg that driving behaviour is the main traffic safety factor. The rise in accidents involving heavy-duty trucks is a tragedy affecting everyone, Abadzhiev says. He notes that road infrastructure in Bulgaria is not in good condition. When heavy goods vehicles travel on narrower roads with one lane on each side, speeds are lower, drivers become nervous and tend to make risky decisions. There is a crying need to complete the construction of the Hemus and Struma motorways to allow faster and safer travel, the expert urges.

Discussing recent border crossing blockades by protesting Greek farmers, and current blockades by hauliers in Serbia and North Macedonia, Abadzhiev says that transport companies sustain losses and drivers are under much strain, although they can detour via Romania or via Greece and on to Italy by ferry. The demands of Western Balkan drivers are understandable, but the UIH has always opposed actions that impede and delay cross-border traffic, he says.

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Bulgaria is becoming increasingly prone to a paradoxical climate pattern of droughts alternating with sudden, destructive rainstorms, with the annual amount of precipitation remaining basically unchanged, says Prof. Emil Gachev of the Climateka weather platform, in an analysis published on Trud.bg. He says that "the new normal" calls for a long-term transformation of water resource planning and management rather than a separate response to each natural disaster. He warns that although no major changes are observed currently in the annual rainfall, over the long range the weather in Bulgaria will become increasingly dry. The "new normal" was manifested clearly and disturbingly in 2025 as contrasting forms of extreme weather alternated throughout the year, from a snowless winter and continuous drought to devastating rains and early snowfall, Gachev recalled.

He noted that the watchword is "adapt". Draining infrastructure should be adapted to the rising maximum water quantities, water system losses should be reduced radically, and water resources should be managed more sensibly, based on long-term planning. With temperatures going higher and drought getting more frequent, water saving is becoming imperative, both in industrial production and in households. Water cannot be taken for granted anymore; it is a limited resource requiring targeted management, Gachev says.

WORLD

Dnevnik.bg has interviewed Iranians in Sofia in connection with the antigovernment protests in the West Asian country. One of the interviewees, Afif H., said: "I have lived in Bulgaria for years and I know that there is corruption here as in many other places, there are dishonest politicians, people complain... Nothing unusual. In Iran, however, the scale is different. The country has enormous resources [it is home to 1% of the world population and 7% of the world's mineral resources], but the people live in dire poverty. Annual incomes range between USD 150 and USD 200 while a kilo of meat costs around USD 30. The quality of life is abominable."

Afif goes on to say: "At the same time, the government says on national television that everything is fine, if you can't afford meat, you can eat something else. But the problems are not just economic. This is the big difference. The main problem is the systematic denial of fundamental human rights. Freedom of speech and freedom of choice don't exist – for men as well as women. A woman may not travel without permission from her husband. If their child needs surgery, the documents must be signed by a man – husband, father, brother or uncle. Women, mothers have no right to sign it on their own. Men also face coercion such as compulsory two-year military service, during which defiance of orders entails serious consequences. Power is brutal. The people are exhausted. They can't stand it anymore. So, this is not just another protest. It's a revolution."