site.btaMedia Review: July 14

UKRAINE WAR

During Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev's visit to Paris for the Bastille Day military parade, a bTV journalist asked him why he is in the French capital for the parade but no one represented Bulgaria at a meeting of 34 countries supporting Ukraine against Russia's aggression. Radev replied: "Bulgaria does not belong in the coalition of the willing. I do not think that Bulgaria belongs there because we do not participate in a coalition drumming up financial and military support for Ukraine."

It emerged from the interview that France had invited Bulgaria to share in the coalition of the willing, but Radev declined the invitation. "I received a personal invitation from President Macron for participation in the coalition of the willing," Radev told the TV station. Explaining the refusal, he noted that the Russia-Ukraine conflict cannot be resolved by prolonging it with military means. He called for "a strong diplomatic mission to end escalation."

The Prime Minister's remarks from Paris, covered by bTV on Tuesday morning, are also discussed in other Bulgarian news outlets. ClubZ.bg recalls that Sofia actually joined the coalition of the willing in 2025, when the then Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov attended meetings in this format. The Bulgarian parliament has set the framework within which the country may take part in international initiatives related to support for Kyiv, expressly ruling out deployment of Bulgarian troops in the zone of the conflict. On March 30, 2026, the Bulgarian government approved the signing of a bilateral agreement with Ukraine. According to ClubZ.bg, these decisions clearly show that Bulgaria has been part of the coalition of the willing ever since it was created and has assumed commitments, albeit limited to non-combat activities.

POLITICS

Continue the Change (CC) and Democratic Bulgaria (DB) may or may not win the presidential election this autumn, but they will certainly lose the vote if they back a joint candidate with GERB, says ClubZ.bg in an analysis signed by Lyuben Obretenov. The author quotes GERB leader Boyko Borissov as saying over the past weekend that to do away with "single-handed governance", it is necessary for "the democratic forces to set forth a single nomination". He thus included his party among the "democratic forces", the website comments, adding that once again, Borissov offered CC and DB to consider a joint presidential candidate.

The author lists a series of "transgressions" which, according to him, make Borissov less than a democrat and an Atlanticist. These include the apparent fact that Borissov, a former three-time prime minister, has governed the country and his party single-handedly; his role in greenlighting the construction of "the Russian/Turkish Stream" natural gas pipeline "to facilitate Putin's war in Ukraine"; and GERB's policy, while in power, to "make sure that there is no European-style rule of law in Bulgaria". The last few months alone have provided ample evidence that Borissov's offer is unacceptable, the article goes.

ECONOMY

"With Westinghouse, Bulgaria Is Making the Same Mistakes as with Belene," runs the title of a video posted on the YouTube channel of SegaBG.com. In the video, Georgi Kaschiev, who was removed from the Board of Directors of the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant on July 10, says that Kozloduy has been in decline since the autumn of 2022. Kaschiev notes that when he took over as Board President in April, he found a complicated structure, major overstaffing, growing expenditures, strange contracts and mishandled public procurement procedures. The professor discovered that Kozloduy was being drained financially under political pressure for the benefit of oligarchs in all sorts of ways, from buying equipment at exorbitant prices to extending four million in donations annually. To appease GERB party leader Boyko Borissov, the plant sponsored a local football club, Kaschiev claims.

Kaschiev was planning radical reforms at Kozloduy. He says he was fired two days after Prime Minister Rumen Radev met with Westinghouse executives. The professor sees a link between the two events. He is highly critical of the delay in the project for building new nuclear capacities at the Kozloduy NPP. The money already spent on the future Reactor Units 7 and 8 has reached between USD 350 million and 370 million, but very little has been accomplished, Kaschiev says. He blames mainly the Bulgarian side for failing to meet deadlines, primarily because of insufficient engineering capacity. He argues that the project for new reactors at Kozloduy is going the same way as the abandoned Belene project.

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With its state budget draft for 2026, the government of Prime Minister Rumen Radev has failed public expectations, SegaBG.com says in a signed comment. The author, Mila Kisyova, notes that the proposed budget scheme falls short of the incumbents' promises to end unreasonable and inefficient spending of public money, stop buying votes by brazenly raising the salaries of civil servants, magistrates, "hard-power" departments (usually meaning the systems of the ministries of interior and defence) and other public-financed sectors, do away with the undisguised theft of taxpayers' money, and give up spending more than the economy can bear.

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The 2026 State Budget Bill sets public revenues at 40% of Bulgaria's gross domestic product (GDP), and yet, the government deficit is expected to reach a record EUR 7.2 billion, or 5.7% of GDP, financial expert Dimitar Chobanov writes on Trud.bg. He notes that, curiously, public expenditures planned in 2026 exceed spending in 2025 by exactly EUR 9,300 million. Such a round number is extremely rare to get, because the final amount is the result of changes in many expenditure items. It seems that the increase itself is some kind of intermediate target, Chobanov speculates. Another nearly-even increase of EUR 5,600.6 million is found on the revenue side of the draft budget. Similarly, deficit growth is forecast at almost exactly EUR 3.7 billion. It is not impossible that these numbers came about accidentally, but it is little likely that all three margins were arrived at unintentionally, Chobanov says.

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In just about four years, new housing in Bulgaria will have to be designed and constructed to release zero emissions, 24chasa.bg says. This is envisioned in an energy efficiency bill drafted by the Energy Ministry and the Sustainable Energy Development Agency to transpose two EU directives into national law. The idea is that the energy consumed in a building for heating, hot water, lighting and cooling must come mainly from renewable energy systems located in the building or right next to it. The options include photovoltaic solar power installations and heat pumps, the website explains, quoting Energy Ministry experts. The zero-emission requirement will become effective in Bulgaria on January 1, 2028, for new public buildings and on January 1, 2030, for new turn-key homes.

In a comment, the website says that higher energy efficiency and clean energy standards are one reason for new property to become more expensive, but the investment is worthwhile because energy costs will be minimal. It will take patience to begin to enjoy the benefits of even higher standards – in other parts of the world there are buildings in which energy consumption is zero, and figuratively speaking, a burning candle is enough to keep one's home warm during the winter, the comment says.

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Three new members have been appointed to the Supervisory Board of Bulgartransgaz, the state-owned natural-gas transmission system operator of Bulgaria, MediaPool.bg reports. The new Supervisory Board will function until a recruitment competition is conducted, but no more than six months. Basically, this is the body which can change the company's Management Board. It remains unclear whether steps will be taken to this end. Sources say that the longtime Executive Director Vladimir Malinov is expected to be replaced.

CULTURE & EDUCATION

With more than 140 countries bidding to participate in Expo 2027 in the Serbian capital Belgrade, Bulgaria still has not signed a contract, nor has the government made the necessary decision, Dnevnik.bg says. The website draws attention to the fact that frequent changes of government in Bulgaria in recent years have delayed the finalization of a number of issues, and this is obviously one of them. The Expo will be held between May 15 and August 15, 2027, which, in theory, means that there is time, but in practice, there is not, says the author of the article, Tatyana Dimitrova. She points to the need for public procurement procedures to get Bulgaria prepared for its participation. The government did not reply within the suggested timeframe to the website's enquiry about when a decision will be made and whether funding is available from the state budget.

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Writer and teacher Milen Halyov tells 24chasa.bg that it pains him to admit that the school system kills "a TikTok child's" interest in reading. "Teachers try to do exactly the opposite, but they can't," Halyov says. "A child of that age [second to fourth grade] should be left to search out on their own the kind of books that they will find interesting. At the beginning, these books may be worse than our own concept of literature, they may be different from what we call 'a book'. But we should let the kid discover that reading is fun rather than compulsory material. Later, they can go to a higher level. If you bury the kid under lists of compulsory reading making them unable to breathe, you are inviting trouble."