site.btaMedia Review: May 14

REFERENDUM PROPOSAL REJECTED

National Assembly Chair Nataliya Kiselova has rejected as inadmissible President Rumen Radev’s proposal to the Assembly for a national referendum on the adoption of the euro in Bulgaria. Therefore, the legislature will not consider Radev’s idea about asking the people whether the single European currency should be adopted in 2026. This is a leading topic in the national media.

Mediapool.bg says that the decision leaves no legal grounds for the President to petition the Constitutional Court because there is no National Assembly resolution to challenge. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov and Bulgarian National Bank Governor Dimitar Radev signed a position statement in favour of adopting the euro on January 1, 2026. Rumen Radev said in a reaction that “the new majority” in the National Assembly trampled on the Constitution and the laws of the country by abusing the chairperson of the Assembly as they obviously feared the voice of the people. Hours after Kiselova’s move, Brussels sent a positive signal, the website reports. The European Commission published its positive assessment of Bulgaria’s fiscal-structural plan until 2028, Finance Minister Temenuzhka Petkova reported.

Trud has interviewed political scientist Stoicho Stoichev, who says that there may have been various reasons for the President’s proposal, but it is clear that the stakes are very high, because such a referendum would keep Bulgaria away from the euro area not just in 2026 but for good. “Radev is a 100% populist par excellence. He uses the kind of rhetoric described by the exponents of classical populism,” Stoichev argues. According to him, referendums are an instrument of direct democracy which is practiced in mature democratic societies where voter turnout is steadily above 70% as in the Nordic countries, Estonia and Lithuania. Stoichev holds that it is absurd to compare Bulgaria to Denmark and Sweden, which have decided, after referendums, to not adopt the euro. He notes that Denmark and Sweden do not need to enter the euro area because they are very active in their monetary policies. Bulgaria practically abandoned its monetary policy in 1997, when the currency board arrangement was introduced after the monetary policy failed. “We are de facto in the euro area already, but we bear all its disadvantages without being able to use its advantages,” the expert says.

Appearing on Wednesday’s morning talk show of Nova TV, Bulgarian Entrepreneurial Association Executive Director Dobromir Ivanov said Bulgaria has been unable to accede to the euro area so far for political reasons, including its national legislation, and later, the COVID-19 pandemic, which changed the indicators. Economist Georgi Vuldzhev noted that Bulgaria “only narrowly” complies with the fiscal deficit requirement for euro area entry. According to Ivanov, euro adoption will provide better access to Europe’s markets, which is crucial for Bulgaria, and the Bulgarian business community has declared that it is ready to take the step.

Interviewed by Bulgarian National Television on Tuesday evening, economist Evgenii Kanev discussed the advantages of euro area membership as an alternative to the present currency board arrangement which pegs the Bulgarian lev to the euro. Kanev said: “No one named the cost of the currency board arrangement. With financial stability in mind, everyone accepted that it was something inexpensive and well-working and that everything about it was fine, but in fact, maintaining the currency board arrangement comes at a very high cost, and we all pay for it without knowing much about it.”

Duma says that in the first month after the euro changeover, when both the euro and the lev will be in circulation in Bulgaria, traders will have no right to raise the prices of goods and services without objective economic grounds. This is envisioned in the draft of a new ordinance. Compliance with this rule will be monitored by the Working Group for Consumer Protection. The daily quotes sociologist Andrei Raichev as saying in a televised interview that the euro changeover cannot be postponed even by a day, “because there are purely legal conditions.”

24 Chasa says that the President’s referendum proposal only served to unite the incumbents and the opposition (more specifically, Democratic Bulgaria, who said they will support the government until Bulgaria joins the euro area). In a separate item, the daily says that the Bulgarian lev has always been pegged to foreign currencies, except in the period from 1990 to 1997, when it collapsed. The daily quotes historian and archaeologist Georgi Chobanov as saying that during the First Bulgarian Kingdom between the 7th and the 11th century, including the years when Bulgaria dictated the political agenda in the region, the country had no currency of its own, and the tax it collected from Byzantium came in Byzantine money. Ever since the Second Bulgarian Kingdom (12th-14th century), the Bulgarian currency has invariably been tied to “anchors”. After the liberation of the Bulgarians from Ottoman Turkish rule in 1878, they were eager to shake off the previous five centuries of regression and to compete with the other European economies. The leaders of the national revolution tried to take Bulgaria into the Latin Monetary Union, and not into the monetary system of Bulgaria's liberator Russia. The underlying assumption was that Bulgaria needed a steady currency to attract investments, build infrastructure from scratch and gain a worthy position as a European state. As another guarantee, the lev was pegged to the most stable European currency at the time, the French franc, at a rate of 1:1.

ECONOMY

A May 9 story in The Wall Street Journal, headlined “Elliott Eyes Bet on Pipeline Carrying Russian Gas” and also saying that “[t]he deal involves a package of infrastructure in Bulgaria, including Russia’s last operational natural-gas link to Europe,” is discussed on Mediapool.bg. The Bulgarian website comments that the news about “secret” talks between US hedge fund Elliott Management and Bulgaria’s natural gas transmission company Bulgartransgaz on the potential acquisition of assets did not come as a surprise to those who follow the actions of the present Bulgartransgaz management and the leaks about coordinated deals between the circles around Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin.

The confidentiality surrounding the talks between Elliott Management and Bulgartransgaz is standard practice for Trump’s envoys to talks with Russia or its intermediaries, the website notes. However, it says, the leak is not a coincidence and can be interpreted in two ways. It is either a trial balloon for a sensitive subject (in which case the deal can be carried through if the institutional and public response is within the expected range), or an alarm signal (the source wants to warn the public and foil the deal).

TurkStream remains the only operational pipeline through which Russia is increasing its natural gas supplies to Europe, surpassing 20 billion cubic metres annually. Russia wants to top 30 billion cu m, but this requires coordinated efforts of US and Turkish partners as well as Bulgarian politicians of the internal “TurkStream coalition.” Bulgaria cannot overcome the European Commission’s objections on its own, just as it is unable to fund and build TurkStream without US support. US Congress sanctions against the project have made it necessary to seek circumventing solutions, including Donald Trump’s direct involvement, the Bulgarian story says.

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The liberalization of the electricity market for household consumers has been postponed for an indefinite period of time, Trud reports in its main story. From July 1 on, the end price of electricity for households will be set by the Energy and Water Regulatory Commission (EWRC). The three electricity distribution companies in Bulgaria will buy electricity from the energy exchange at market prices and will sell it to household consumers at a rate set by EWRC.

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The incumbents’ enthusiasm to set a price cap on staple foods has obviously faded completely, SegaBG.com says. For one thing, the cabinet is strangely silent about the project to establish a state-owned chain of stores selling mainly Bulgarian-made products, where the markups may not exceed 10%. The legally established one-month time limit for setting up the stores and putting them into operation has expired, but there is no information about what is happening with the plans to establish the company, which is supposed to absorb BGN 10 million from the state budget. Ministers Georgi Tahov of Agriculture and Food, Temenuzhka Petkova of Finance and Petar Dilov of Economy and Industry have been evasive on the matter. Secondly, a controversial bill seeking a cap on the markups on staple foods in supermarket chains has been on the back-burner for three months now.

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Municipalities’ plans to use their own resources to build industrial parks, green spaces and other public infrastructure facilities on large landplots provided by the central government are coming to naught, SegaBG.com reports. Having failed to make use of the cost-free properties, the local authorities are returning them to the state. As there is no official mechanism for returning such land, the municipalities have found an absurd-sounding solution: they have become donors to the respective regional governments.

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A week at a summer care centre for children can cost between BGN 250 and BGN 800 per kid, 24 Chasa says. The cheapest offers do not usually include food, and the programme is not quite varied in this case. The most expensive packages often include a sleepover option, three meals a day and such activities as horseback riding and canoeing. Foreign-language classes and sports are best preferred by kids and their parents when it comes to spending time in summer care centres. Embroidery and art studios also feature on the programmes of some of these institutions.