site.btaMedia Review: August 17

POLITICS

On bTV's morning show, former foreign affairs minister Nadezhda Neynsky said Bulgaria was losing its foreign policy influence due to inconsistent actions. According to her, Prime Minister Rumen Radev's governance programme fails to provide a clear development plan for Bulgaria up to 2030. “What concerns me is that there is no clear strategic perspective for Bulgaria,” Neynsky stressed. She questioned Bulgaria's position when its interests do not align with those of the European Union and the US. She condemned the Government's inconsistency regarding the military conflicts in Iran and Ukraine, arguing that country's involvement in the former was presented as a matter of fulfilling alliance commitments, while in the latter it was portrayed as posing a risk of Bulgaria being drawn into a war. According to her, the decision to accommodate US aircraft at Sofia Airport was part of an agreement with the US on training exercises, while their deployment at Bezmer Air Base provided logistical support for the conflict in the Middle East. “He (Radev) is talking about autonomy, namely, that the state should defend its national interests independently, but that requires significant resources, strategy and diplomacy, which Bulgaria, unlike Turkiye and India, for instance, does not have,” Neynsky stressed. “For Bulgaria, the best way of defending its national interests is to increase its influence in international relations through the democratic alliances of which it is a member,” Neynsky suggested.

*** 

Trud features an interview with political scientist Hristo Panchugov 100 days after the Radev Government took office and ahead of the presidential elections. According to Panchugov, Rumen Radev has greater appeal among voters who support pro-Russian policies than either Vazrazhdane or Continue the Change and Democratic Bulgaria, which he said had failed to deliver on promises to jail MRF leader Delyan Peevski and GERB leader Boyko Borissov. He added that GERB was facing a difficult position, having lost allies and needing to preserve its influence in local government ahead of the next local elections, leaving it little incentive or capacity to confront Radev. Panchugov argued that neither a potential Continue the Change - Democratic Bulgaria candidate nor a GERB-UDF candidate would have a serious chance of challenging Iliana Iotova in the upcoming presidential election.

*** 

In an interview with the Bulgarian National Radio (BNR), economist Shteryo Nozharov described the Government's programme as a “PR document”. The programme envisages a balanced budget, limiting public debt and ending the excessive deficit procedure, but Nozharov said it contained no realistic instruments to achieve these goals. He argued that the key documents were the medium-term budget programme through 2028 and the medium-term fiscal-structural plan, neither of which reflected the measures outlined in the Government's programme. Nozharov also criticised plans to reduce the remuneration of boards at state-owned enterprises, arguing that the real problem was their number, with Bulgaria having 266 state-owned enterprises - around three times the European average. In his view, the programme was primarily intended to ease public tensions rather than bring about substantive changes.

24 Chasa features an interview with sociologist Kancho Stoychev, who defended the Radev Government's programme, describing it as containing “important, new and progressive changes”. He called it a good programme that Bulgaria had not seen in a long time, with “normalization and the building of statehood” as its main theme. Asked about its strongest ideas, Stoychev said its pages clearly conveyed that things would not continue as before, without citing specific policies. Regarding the upcoming presidential election, he said Iliana Iotova was currently the only clearly visible candidate, describing her as balanced, experienced, responsible, confident and dialogue-oriented, and suggesting that her potential rivals appeared to be preparing to enter the race quietly.

In an interview with the BNR, National Association of Municipalities in the Republic of Bulgaria (NAMRB) Deputy Chair Donka Mihaylova also commented on the Radev Cabinet's programme. She described the investment programme as one of the most important tools for addressing municipalities' problems and expressed hope that the Government's promised new approach would ensure fairer distribution and sequencing of payments. Mihaylova warned, however, that the process could still be vulnerable to subjectivity in deciding which municipalities receive funding. She also welcomed the programme's specific commitments on decentralization, saying she hoped the Council for Decentralization would finally begin work.

ECONOMY

On Bulgarian National Television’s (BNT) morning show, Confederation of Independent Trade Unions in Bulgaria (CITUB) President Plamen Dimitrov and Bulgarian Industrial Capital Association (BICA) Executive Director Dobrin Ivanov discussed the formula for determining the minimum wage in Bulgaria. Ivanov said that recent meetings between employers, trade unions and Cabinet members had revealed differing approaches, with several points initially seen as agreed subsequently rejected, mainly by trade unions. Dimitrov and Ivanov agreed that employers and unions had worked intensively in recent years to establish an adequate mechanism and were close to agreement on the main issues. Ivanov said the business community's proposal, agreed with the trade unions, was for the minimum wage to be negotiated directly each year, taking into account four established criteria.

On Nova Television’s morning show, Podkrepa Confederation of Labour Secretary Valeri Apostolov and BICA Board Chair Vasil Velev also discussed the issue. “Trade unions cannot accept a freeze on workers’ incomes,” Apostolov said. Velev argued that people should remain on the minimum wage only temporarily, particularly “the unskilled, those without education, the lazy and those without work habits”, warning that an excessive increase could discourage professional development. Apostolov described the remarks as “an insult to Bulgarian workers and employees”, noting that when Bulgaria joined the European Union in 2007, the minimum wage was EUR 92, or 14% of the European average. He added that “if incomes had grown at the rates proposed by employers over the years, the minimum wage today would be around EUR 300.” Velev said Bulgaria ranked first in the EU in terms of the ratio of the minimum to the average wage and to GDP per capita, stressing that “the minimum wage is not social assistance”. Trade unions, however, insist that purchasing power and the cost of living be included in the new formula to prevent workers from losing income.

*** 

On bTV’s morning show, former economy minister Nikolay Vassilev commented on the country’s financial situation. He said there was no reason for the state to intervene in or control prices. “We do not live in state communism as we did 40 years ago. This is not the state’s job,” he said. Vassilev stressed that Bulgaria’s entry into the eurozone had nothing to do with higher inflation, noting that the increase in March had been driven by the war in the Middle East, while subsequent months had seen both deflation and seasonal effects. “Bulgaria has many problems, but inflation is not one of them,” he said, arguing that inflation could neither be nor should be zero in the country, given its relatively low income levels and strong wage growth in recent years. Vassilev said he believed in a market economy rather than state intervention, stressing that Bulgaria currently had no economic crisis, war or restrictions on access to European and global markets.

RADICALIZATION

Three of those detained at a private club in Plovdiv linked to the international neo-Nazi organization Blood & Honour have been charged with inciting discrimination, hatred and violence based on race, nationality or sexual orientation. The topic was one of those dominating the media on Monday.

On bTV's morning show, Interior Ministry Academy Deputy Rector Ilin Savov argued that online radicalization was a global phenomenon that was growing alongside the development of the digital environment. The issue has once again raised public concern following a murder in Plovdiv, South Central Bulgaria, and the arrest of 18 suspected members of the neo-Nazi Blood and Honour movement. “In 2016, Interpol warned of the emergence of radical groups in the digital space. Subsequently, Europol and the FBI established that these organisations had begun specifically targeting children,” Savov said. According to him, the biggest challenge in tackling the issue is the enormous financial resources of digital criminal networks. “The digital crime economy generates billions annually, much of which is either subject to little oversight or is inadequately regulated. Criminal networks invest hundreds of millions in improving algorithms and automated bot systems capable of identifying potential victims at an earlier stage,” he noted. Savov suggested that “ideological hybridisation” involved vulnerable children who lacked family support and care. “The selected victims are given the opportunity to ‘feel unique,’” he said. Regarding the proposal to restrict social media access for children under 16, he stressed that such a ban would need to be properly justified and based on expert analysis; otherwise, it could create another risk in the digital environment.

On Nova Television’s morning show, national security expert and former Interior Ministry Chief Secretary Prof. Nikolay Radulov, political scientist Assoc. Prof. Stoicho Stoev and political science lecturer Prof. Anna Kresteva discussed the spread of radical ideologies in Bulgaria. Radulov said the activities of followers of the Blood and Honour movement in Plovdiv did not in themselves constitute propaganda, explaining that this would require evidence that members were attempting to persuade others to adopt their views or distributing materials. Stoev described similar metal venues as a marginal subculture and said there was currently no evidence that the group had organized specific attacks, while noting that investigators would need to establish its structure and leadership to prove it was an organized group. Kresteva said Bulgarian neo-Nazi groups were closely linked to counterparts in Western Europe, noting the visibility of their participation in the Lukov March, and added that extremism also had different geopolitical sources, including “Rashism”, or Russian fascism.

EUROVISION 2027

Trud features an article by Borislav Tsekov criticizing Sofia Mayor Vassil Terziev (Continue the Change, Democratic Bulgaria, Save Sofia) over the decision to select Burgas rather than Sofia as host of Eurovision 2027. Tsekov argued that, unlike Burgas, Sofia under Terziev lacked quality local governance, a modern vision and the capacity to host the event at the required level, writing that the capital increasingly resembled “a provincial city in Congo”. He praised Burgas Mayor Dimitar Nikolov (GERB), describing the decision to hold Eurovision in Burgas as excellent and rejecting suggestions of political motives. Tsekov said the city had a local administration with the proven capacity to host the event without embarrassing Bulgaria, while Sofia's political leaders could continue “exchanging memes on Facebook”.

24 Chasa also features a commentary by Valeri Naydenov on the decision to choose Burgas over Sofia, drawing parallels with historical decisions by George Washington, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Peter the Great to establish new capitals. Naydenov argues that changing the capital can mark a transition from political chaos to a more orderly state. He sees the Eurovision decision as an attempt to marginalise Sofia's politically active civil society, arguing that Bulgarian politicians are elected by the entire country but effectively “dismissed by the yellow cobblestones” of central Sofia. According to Naydenov, moving major national events away from the capital could weaken this perceived influence and contribute to the “normalisation” of the state.

On bTV’s morning show, Burgas Airport Director Vasil Atanasov commented on the airport's readiness to handle the estimated 400,000 visitors expected for Eurovision 2027. The airport currently has direct connections to around 70 international destinations and can handle up to about 50,000 passengers a day during peak periods. Talks are under way with airlines about opening additional direct routes to Burgas. Atanasov said he was confident the airport could handle the additional traffic generated by tourists, delegations and journalists, while noting that it remained unclear whether Istanbul Airport would also be used if necessary. The airport management said it was too early for such projections but stressed that Burgas Airport had sufficient capacity for the flights associated with the competition.