site.btaMedia Review: September 17

SOFIA

The 24 Chasa daily has an interview with Sofia Mayor Vassil Terziev on September 17, which marks the capital’s official holiday, Sofia Day, coinciding with the feast of the Holy Martyrs Sophia, Faith, Hope and Love in the Orthodox Christian calendar. Terziev says the city was making progress in infrastructure, public spaces, transport and education, while acknowledging that major challenges remained and some depended on cooperation with the state.

Terziev also says the municipality had launched three metro stations in Poduyane and was building seven more, while more than 440,000 sq m of sidewalks had been repaired or built. Education remains a priority, with 20 new kindergarten buildings already operational and 15 under construction or design. He also highlights plans for the Green Ring and major infrastructure projects.

On waste management, Terziev says the crisis was being resolved zone by zone and that the municipality aimed to secure staggered cleaning contracts, increase competition and build municipal capacity. He says the system should ultimately provide better service and save Sofia residents hundreds of millions of euros. He also calls for greater citizen responsibility over bulky waste and announced work on a new disposal model.

Terziev says access to Vitosha Mountain and completion of Sofia’s ring road required cooperation with state institutions. He voices hope to establish an irreversible path toward restoring at least one Vitosha lift by the end of his term.

He also called for major investment and restructuring at the Toplofikacia Sofia heating company, saying he hoped the company would move toward a concession. Regarding his political future, Terziev says he would consider running for another term if satisfied with the results achieved.

He stresses that citizens must be active participants in solving the city's problems, saying neither a mayor nor a prime minister could improve Sofia without their involvement.

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An analysis in 24 Chasa reads that Sofia's electricity demand is rising as the capital expands, with the average load on its distribution network increasing by more than 4% in four years to 616 MW in 2025 and reaching 615 MW in the first half of 2026, according to an analysis.

Thirteen areas in Sofia and surrounding territories have significant new power capacity requests. Demand is particularly high around Malinova Dolina, Studentski Grad, parts of Mladost, Vitosha and Pancharevo, where about 160 MW has been requested, and around Druzhba, Mladost and Gorublyane, with roughly 180 MW. The grid faces additional pressure from new housing and business zones, electrified heating, electric vehicles, data centres, solar installations and batteries, 24 Chasa reports.

Electricity distribution company ERM Zapad Executive Director Radoslav Tsvetkov says infrastructure must be built ahead of demand rather than catching up after new development is completed. He says the company invested nearly EUR 142 million in Sofia's distribution network between 2021 and 2025 and plans to invest more than EUR 45 million in 2026. The Gorublyane area, for example, requires a new substation, upgraded facilities, transformer stations and cable lines.

Sofia is also moving towards a “smart grid”, with more than 530,000 smart meters installed. New data-management and network-control systems are expected to improve planning, fault response and integration of renewable energy and batteries.

The analysis highlights a lack of urban planning, regulated routes and sites for infrastructure as key obstacles, while greater investment and European funding are needed. Tsvetkov said the network Sofia will need in 2035 must be built today.

FINANCE

According to the Mediapool.bg online news outlet, political tensions are mounting over the possibility of a revision of Bulgaria's budget deficit for 2025. In spring, Eurostat officially validated a deficit of 3.5% of GDP, which, excluding defence spending that is treated as an exception, stands at 2.9%, within the permissible limit. On October 21, however, Eurostat is expected to announce the final data. If the government of Rumen Radev submits revised information and admits that Bulgaria deliberately concealed spending in 2025, for example on construction, Eurostat could revise the data, potentially causing reputational damage to the country. Although on a different scale, a major scandal involving budget statistics occurred with Greece's data before the major eurozone crisis around 15 years ago, Mediapool.bg reports.

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In a Bulgarian National Television (BNT) interview, Fiscal Council Chairman Simeon Djankov, who is also a former GERB finance minister, said Prime Minister Rumen Radev is right that the government of Rosen Zhelyazkov did not report an accurate deficit to Eurostat for 2025.

"Prime Minister Radev is right. Such audits can be carried out, this is entirely legal. They should be conducted by the Bulgarian National Audit Office. Based on these audits, the Ministry of Finance and the National Statistical Institute should approach Brussels and say: "We apologize, we have found some errors" and, on this basis, Eurostat should revise its calculations for the 2025 budget. By the way, they already had their doubts, and by the end of 2025 they knew that something was wrong," Djankov said. According to him, the official deficit for 2025 could reach around 5% of GDP.

Djankov explained that the deficit had been understated for accounting purposes through two main schemes – by failing to issue invoices on time for work completed by the Road Infrastructure Agency and by starting construction work without a contract being signed at all. According to calculations cited by Djankov, this resulted in the 2025 deficit being understated by about EUR 1.4 billion.

"At the Fiscal Council, we suspected that this was happening because the figures for infrastructure construction did not add up. But it turned out that even the Ministry of Finance did not know the exact amount. Why? Because there are actually no contracts. Someone at the Road Infrastructure Agency or the Ministry of Transport knows about the contracts. Even if you try to conduct an audit, this is why the Bulgarian National Audit Office needs to step in – you have to talk to people one by one: what did you start, what did you understand, who told you to do it," Djankov also told BNT.

Mediapool.bg also covers Djankov’s interview thoroughly.

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Dnevnik.bg frontpages an analysis saying that Bulgarian state institutions regularly launch inspections into the work of previous governments, but there is no unified system to track what happens after violations are identified and cases are referred to prosecutors or other control bodies.

According to the online news outlet, responses from the Council of Ministers and the Public Financial Inspection Agency (PFIA) show that violations are identified and materials are forwarded to competent authorities, but their subsequent development is not systematically monitored by the institutions that initially uncovered the problems.

The Council of Ministers says the administration has no register, database or other system for tracking the progress of materials sent to prosecutors and other control bodies. While there is no legal requirement for institutions to follow every case through to its final outcome, the lack of a closed accountability mechanism means sanctions, investigations, charges or court rulings may remain scattered across different institutions and case files, Dnevnik.bg writes.

Among the cases cited are a 2022 audit of Bulgarian Posts that found financial and management violations, irregularities at the National Commission for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, and delayed inspections involving the regional administrations of Targovishte, Razgrad and Vratsa. PFIA also maintains records of correspondence with prosecutors, but cannot provide consolidated data showing how many referred cases resulted in investigations, charges or final court decisions, the article further says.

PETROHAN CASE

Bulgarian National Radio has an interview with lawyer Mihail Ekimdzhiev, in which he commented on the Petrohan murder case. The Petrohan case is a high-profile criminal case in which five men and a 15-year-old boy met a violent death between February 1 and 8, 2026. Their bodies were found at two remote mountain locations in Northwestern Bulgaria: a lodge near the Petrohan Pass and a camper van near Okolchitsa Peak. Forensic experts established that all six died of gunshot wounds. Law enforcement officials said the principal leads they followed, based on ballistics findings, the causes of death have been identified as suicide at the lodge and homicide and suicide in the camper.

According to Ekimdzhiev, “someone has pulled the leash of the prosecuting magistracy”, and there are clearly grounds to request the recusal of expert witness Rosen Yordanov from the case.

On September 16, it became public that lawyers representing relatives of the victims had requested the recusal of expert witnesses Rosen Yordanov, Associate Prof. Vladimir Velinov and Associate Prof. Aleksandar Aleksandrov, citing inadmissible bias and prejudice that were incompatible with their role as neutral experts. In a BNT interview on September 17, Rosen Yordanov denied being biased or prejudiced, saying that he had been emotional because of the case.

“Yordanov has publicly taken a similarly categorical position on the Petrohan case at least twice, supporting statements by then-acting prosecutor general Borislav Sarafov, who predetermined a narrow, one-sided investigation focused on a single hypothesis, and he was helpfully echoed at the time, including by this person who describes himself as a psychologist. Secondly, his conduct yesterday was simply unimaginable. I deliberately call it a freak show because it falls outside any normal understanding of ethics, public conduct and what may or may not be done during a pre-trial investigation,” Ekimdzhiev said.

According to Ekimdzhiev, the prosecuting magistracy could initiate proceedings on its own over a possible violation of legislation protecting children and their personal data. He argued that the news conference should not have been held in that manner while the pre-trial investigation was still incomplete and at least 12 expert reports remained outstanding. He said the presumption of innocence should also have been respected and stressed that the facts in a criminal case can only be conclusively established through an open, adversarial court proceeding in which the defence can present evidence and an alternative point of view. He added that, in cases such as this, Bulgarian criminal procedure often prevents such an open adversarial trial from taking place.

Ekimdzhiev also argued that the prosecuting magistracy was abusing its monopoly over pre-trial investigations, particularly because when the main suspects are dead, proceedings are terminated and challenges to their termination are considered by courts in closed hearings. He said this prevents the relatives of the victims from challenging the prosecution's conclusions through adversarial proceedings. According to him, the relatives could nevertheless potentially bring a case against the prosecution service over the news conference, which he said had been organized under its responsibility. Ekimdzhiev reiterated his view that the prosecution's leadership had been pressured into organizing the event and said he saw “the shadow of Ivo Hristov” behind it.

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The Segabg.com online news outlet also covers the topic, publishing an article titled “Rosen Yordanov Refuses to Withdraw from the Petrohan Case” despite the request of lawyers representing the victims' relatives to have him removed for bias and prejudice, quoting his BNT interview.

“They have nothing else they can do,” Yordanov commented, speaking in an extremely dismissive manner about lawyer Ina Lulcheva, who submitted the request, Segabg.com writes. He said he had no preconceived views, but in fact gave several interviews containing strong assessments in the first days after the deaths of the six victims – before he had been appointed as an expert and before he had access to the investigation, Segabg.com recalls.

According to numerous comments by legal experts, the specialist has no place in the investigation and should be removed, the news outlet further writes.

Yordanov downplayed the fact that not all expert reports have yet been completed, including the situational reconstruction of what happened at the Petrohan lodge, and that the briefing convened by the prosecuting magistracy had been premature. He said the situational report was in fact 99.9% complete and only remained unsigned. He also said the process could not be delayed because some expert examinations could take a very long time.

Yordanov described the leaking of the expert report to certain media outlets as “premature”. He said he had contacted the journalists and asked them to edit the text, which contained sensitive information about the people involved and their full names, including those of a minor girl. Following the ensuing scandal, the websites replaced some of the names with initials.

The psychologist said it was normal for the Petrohan case to become politicized because a political battle was being waged.

POLITICS

Commenting on the upcoming presidential election, political scientist Lyubomir Stefanov told BNR that “we are in for an interesting autumn”. He said that around 2 million Bulgarians do not vote and said the outcome of the election is far from clear.

“I hope the presidential candidates themselves will take matters into their own hands, stop attacking the parties, political system and institutions, and show us whether they know what the presidency can and cannot do and how they would exercise its powers differently”, he said.

Stefanov told the national radio that Iliana Iotova and Kiril Valchev are expected to benefit most from the Progressive Bulgaria (PB) wave. PB supported Iotova only half-heartedly and left the battle largely to her, Stefanov said, stressing that Iotova does not speak in the same way as Rumen Radev. In his view, there must be a distinction between the two, otherwise the election could look like “deja vu” and discourage many people from voting.

“The majoritarian nature of the presidential election and the amount of support it generates give the person who assumes the presidency a degree of electoral confidence that they eventually test against the party that nominated them. Iotova has extensive political experience, which at some point will give her a broader and more provocative reading of reality than what PB may pursue. She is not threatened with early termination of her mandate”, Stefanov explained.

Regarding the Movement for Rights and Freedoms, he said there was a clear line of behaviour – a business model that follows power and money. As for GERB, Stefanov said it looked more like “kitchen stories”, adding that Boyko Borissov's record in presidential elections was rather unfortunate, apart from Rosen Plevneliev.

Vazrazhdane is probably looking for a candidate, although it has several strong contenders, Stefanov said, adding that the choice would likely become clear through a high-profile public appearance.

Regarding the Petrohan case, Stefanov said he believed the institutions were being pushed to present the case in a particular way at this particular moment in order to influence the election campaign. He argued that since February, successive statements by the former acting prosecutor general Borislav Sarafov and subsequent actions by the prosecuting magistracy had promoted the same narrative, while society too readily treats allegations as public verdicts without waiting for a fair, objective and transparent trial. According to Stefanov, the case is now being used as a mechanism to reshape the entire election campaign.

INCOME

The Trud tabloid daily frontpages an article titled “40 Bulgarians Declare Annual Taxable Income Above 9.6 Mln Leva”, according to which forty people in Bulgaria declared taxable income of more than 9.6 million leva (EUR 4.91 million) each for 2025, or more than 800,000 leva (EUR 409,000) a month on average. The article is based on a written response by the National Revenue Agency (NRA), Trud says.

The data show an increase in very high employment incomes during the year. The number of people declaring monthly taxable salary income above 800,000 leva (EUR 409,000) rose from 19 in January to 95 in November and 135 in December, when companies traditionally pay bonuses. Five people declared more than 30 million leva (EUR 15.34 million) in annual employment income, with their earnings coming from multiple employers in manufacturing, trade, construction and professional and scientific activities.

The NRA said it plans checks in 2027-2028 to assess whether exceptionally high salaries paid to company owners, managers and other related individuals may represent hidden profit distributions aimed at reducing dividend-tax liabilities.

Overall, 1,435 people declared average monthly income above 100,000 leva (EUR 51,129) in 2025. At the other end of the scale, the number of people with employment income at or below the minimum wage of 1,077 leva (EUR 551) fell from 933,000 in January to 851,000 in December, although it rose seasonally during the summer, the article further says.

CULTURE

Dnevnik.bg and BNR report that representatives of the independent cultural sector staged a protest outside the Ministry of Culture. The protest was prompted by the 20-year privatization contract for the film studio in Sofia's Boyana district, which expires in two months. The protesters fear that once the restrictions expire, the owner, Nu Boyana Film Studios, could sell the property. They submitted a petition to the ministry calling for concrete action and measures to protect the public interest. Earlier in September, the Culture Ministry said that an inspection by the Public Enterprises Agency had found no violations of the contract.