site.btaMedia Review: August 13

GOVERNMENT PROGRAMME

The programme of Prime Minister Rumen Radev's government, adopted by the Council of Ministers on Wednesday, is a leading topic in Bulgarian media.

24chasa.bg highlights important changes envisioned by the powerholders. The website says that under the chapter on "Dismantling the Oligarchic Model", the government intends to seek out the intermediaries between "the top of the oligarchic pyramid", the ministries and the law enforcement agencies. The intermediaries should be identified by the end of 2026, and it should become clear by then how they influence the decisions of the public authorities and what role they play in distributing public resources. About 193,000 public procurement contracts worth EUR 51 billion in total will be made public. The government will exercise constant control and halt projects and payments involving corruption risk while revising major public procurement deals. Establishing agricultural cooperatives is another point in the programme. Media ownership registers are to be revamped, and media ownership transparency will be monitored by a single state body. In the field of foreign policy, the website notes that the programme has no mention of Russia but stipulates assistance for the Bulgarian community in Ukraine.

BNT1, the main channel of Bulgarian National Television, interviewed Deputy Prime Minister Ivo Hristov on Thursday morning. Hristov said: "I must admit that the deadlines cannot be set with absolute precision. A programme cannot be adopted as a detailed schedule of action, but it lays down a horizon of effort. We have many new ideas – radical steps, from reforming the Constitution to changing the economic model." Discussing the planned dismantlement of the "oligarchic model", Hristov said the Sigma system for public procurement analysis uses a far narrower range of acceptable costs and identifies those that deviate from the norm. "It is a kind of filter because firms and companies have been exposed for price abuse, having received unrealistic contracts," the Deputy PM explained. His message to foreign investors was that Bulgaria now has stable political prospects for a four-year period. "The institutions are beginning to perform their assigned roles, and politics is returning to the institutions." The Bulgarian government will pursue a "multi-vector foreign policy", which is always an advantage, Hristov said. He is afraid that Europe will recede into isolation. "This is discernible even now, as the dialogue on Europe's affairs, the Ukraine war, leaves out the voice of Europe, running instead between the United States and Russia," Hristov said.

SegaBG.com pays special attention to the incumbent's pledge to change the healthcare funding model, which is currently based on a system of clinical pathways. The idea is to introduce the model of diagnosis-related groups on a pilot basis. The website notes that this kind of reform has been discussed for years but still seems impossible on Bulgarian soil. The article further points to "a series of good wishes" concerning hospital expenditure control. Such control will be exercised through digital monitoring of hospitalizations and case histories, also involving empowerment of patients by notification. A probe will be launched in November to examine the physical availability of hospital beds and the bed occupancy rates nationwide. As is well-known, Bulgaria has the EU's highest number of hospital beds per capita but bed occupancy has for years been around or below 50%, the website says.

Trud.bg gives headline prominence to the government's pledge to increase the weight of the length-of-service component in the pension formula, which will be achieved by amending the Labour Code. The deadline is December 2029. The change will push all pensions up.

POLITICS

The government has decided to launch a new procedure for electing a European prosecutor from Bulgaria, rejecting the three nominees put forward under the GERB government, MediaPool.bg says. The future holder of the post will succeed Teodora Georgieva, who was suspended and received a disciplinary penalty. Georgieva was proven to have had improper contacts with Petyo "the Euro" Petrov, an infamous power broker in the Bulgarian judiciary. The discontinuation of the previous procedure means that Bulgaria will be late in filling its European prosecutor position, the website says. The country needs to name three new candidates.

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Former deputy prime minister Ivailo Kalfin sees a "communication disaster" in the behaviour of Rumen Radev's government. Interviewed by MediaPool.bg, Kalfin, who is currently Executive Director of Dublin-based Eurofound (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions), says that Radev is good at slogans, but wishful thinking cannot make Bulgarians affluent, happy and healthy. The declared government deficit of 5.7% has brought to light hidden problems from the times of earlier governments, and Radev's cabinet is still busy filling the gaps. Kalfin does not expect Radev to follow the example of Hungary's Viktor Orban, because Orban failed – but Radev's ambivalent foreign policy harms Bulgaria.

CRIME & SAFETY

Of all possible factors which contributed to the recent brutal murder in Plovdiv, a number of prominent liberals these days chose to blame the "march for the family" and all conservative people in general, says a Trud.bg analysis signed by Krystian Szkwarek. Apparently counting himself among the "conservatives", Szkwarek says: "When we warned for years that kids and young people were out of control and we called for stricter parental supervision, serious government measures, restoring school discipline and so on, you called us authoritarian. The next moment, you blame us for the actions of a gang of bad eggs totally out of control, some of whom had run away from home, with zero discipline and sense of responsibility and absolute disregard for authority. This is the result of everything we tried to resist while you accused us of intending to restore communism."

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How safe and just is living in Bulgaria? The question is discussed in a comment on 24chasa.com. The author, public relations expert Diana Damyanova, writes that she – and presumably many other Bulgarians – are in dire need of safety and justice. "This, however, cannot be achieved with hidden police cameras or by reporting successful arrests according to a system where every gramme of intercepted marijuana is a separate offence, and even less so by having every police department employ an officer (oh my God!) in charge of 'the social network' – meaning Facebook, I should note. It will be achieved when Bulgarians and foreigners begin to feel safe on Bulgarian streets. Which cannot be said at all about the present situation in the country. The government's first 100 days may not have been enough to devise a meaningful security concept for our dear country, but they should have been enough to make people notice that change is in the air, at least, in managing the processes."

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"Russian Neo-Nazi Networks Spread Freely in Bulgaria," SegaBG.com says. In a video on the website's YouTube channel, journalist Ruslan Trad says that, internationally, radical-right movements have mushroomed over the last 10 or 15 years. The subject has been constantly discussed in Europe for six years now, but Bulgarian institutions seem totally indifferent. Expressing his puzzlement at what he calls "the inaction" of the Bulgarian authorities, Trad says that if you offend a member of such a group ever so slightly, very soon you begin to be treated as an enemy and you are targeted online in what is figuratively called "dog spinning". "These things are not unknown, they are plain visible to all of us, and I am extremely surprised at the lack of a more serious reaction by the security services. Many of these organizations and communities are grossly violent in various ways," the journalist says.

ECONOMY

The energy risk posed by the Danube's low water levels is discussed in an analysis originally published on the Climateka weather platform and covered on Dnevnik.bg. According to the analysis, low water and high temperatures have forced limitations upon the output of nuclear power plants along the Danube in other European countries. Bulgaria's Kozloduy N-plant is better prepared for low water levels but is not immune to the risk associated with extreme heat. The risk is primarily for the plant's effectiveness and electricity generation, and not directly for nuclear safety. Climate change is putting strain not only on the nuclear plant but on the country's entire electricity infrastructure, including coal-fired, solar and wind power systems, batteries and power lines. Infrastructure ought to resist future climate conditions rather than remaining based on past weather data, the analysis says.