site.btaMedia Review: June 18

ECONOMY

“From Santorini to Jordan and Egypt, Earthquakes and War Make Holidays Cheaper,” caps the main story in 24 Chasa. The daily says that before the popular Greek island of Santorini was hit by earthquakes this past winter, an average of 18,000 tourists arrived there every day during the high season. Now, the number of high-season arrivals is forecast at 8,000 per day. Making Santorini less accessible to tourists is supported by the local authorities because of the excessive growth of the tourist flow in recent years. Hotel accommodation prices on the island have decreased drastically and charter flight programmes have been cancelled, the paper says, quoting Svetlana Vatashka, Executive Director of the Future for Tourism Alliance.

Bookings for other foreign travel destinations where issues exist have dropped as well, tour operators say, as quoted by the paper. Tourism likes peace, safety and tranquillity, it is sensitive to any kind of instability – political, social or climate-wise. Fears of a weak season have also been expressed about the Greek islands of Crete and Rhodes. The war in the Middle East has suspended charter flights to Jordan and holidays in the country’s popular coastal resort of Aqaba. Middle East tensions will probably dampen travellers’ interest in visiting Egypt and Cyprus too, Vatashka says.

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The President of the Railway Transport Workers Union, Petar Bunev, warned on Tuesday that a planned reform in railway passenger transport in Bulgaria will cause fragmentation on the small domestic market and will thus make it less effective, Duma reports on page one. The idea to hand over the railway passenger service from the state to three private operators simply means that a state monopoly will be replaced by three private monopolies, he argued. “When you go to a train station, you will not have a choice between operator A, B and C. There will be only one carrier along the route you want to travel,” Bunev explained. 

POLITICS

Bulgaria is tightening control over criminally acquired assets, Trud says in its main story. The daily reports that planned amendments to the Penal Code seek to expand the circle of people who may forfeit unlawfully acquired assets. In addition to the sentenced persons, forfeiture will also apply to members of their families, ex-spouses, cohabitating partners and connected companies. Assets will be confiscated if they were transferred at below-market prices, donated or contributed to the capital of a company, if there is evidence of criminal origin of the assets. The proposed amendments are up for public coordination. They are aimed to show Bulgaria’s progress on a recommendation by the Paris-headquartered Financial Action Task Force (FATF) concerning suspension and confiscation of criminal assets. The country hopes to be removed from the FATF “grey list” of jurisdictions which are under increased monitoring as they work to address strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing.

Confiscated assets will be placed under the control of the National Revenue Agency (NRA). Under draft amendments to the NRA Act, the agency will be entitled to sell, donate or destroy forfeited assets, anything from a car to crypto assets, and to donate cultural property to museums, and food to food banks.

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A case in which a 36-year-old man in the seaside city of Varna died after being arrested by police has led SegaBG.com to analyze the situation in the Interior Ministry system. The website says that the truth about the case and whether it involved police brutality is yet to be established, but overall, the Interior Ministry has a chronic problem with officers’ brutality and inadequate behaviour in critical situations and during arrests, which often remains unpunished. Recalling earlier fatal situations involving law enforcers, the author points out that police unions did not come forward and condemn the officers’ conduct, police chiefs did not apologize on behalf of their subordinates, and the ministry’s political and professional leadership did not assume responsibility. It will not be surprising if the Varna case is glossed over and everything is drowned in promises about better police training, super great body-worn cameras and other latest-generation aids – until the next case of brutality, or inadequate behaviour, or unfitness, or misjudgment... which will not be a long time coming.

BULGARIA-NORTH MACEDONIA

Bulgarian President Rumen Radev said his support for Ljupcho Georgievski, the leader of a disbanded cultural centre in Bitola, “remains unwavering, as a position of an institution which was first to raise the issue of the rights of Bulgarians in North Macedonia,” Trud reports. The President met with Georgievski in Sofia on Tuesday. A statement by Georgievski is conveyed in the headline: “I’m Honoured to Have Been Sued as Bulgarian.”

A court in Bitola has handed a one-year suspended sentence with a two-year probation period to Georgievski on charges of inciting xenophobia, racism and ethnic hatred by posting quotes from the controversial historical figure Ivan Mihailov on the cultural centre’s Facebook page. Politicians in Bulgaria slammed the court ruling and expressed support for Georgievski.

MediaPool.bg quotes Foreign Minister Georg Georgiev as describing the Georgievski trial as “politically motivated.”

BNT1, the main channel of Bulgarian National Television, interviewed Georgievski on its morning talk show on Wednesday. He said: “The Bulgarian state has always stood behind me and my association. Thank you so much to all Bulgarian institutions for the support. We should remember that I am not the only one in such a position in the Republic of North Macedonia. Anyone who stands up as a Bulgarian is in the same situation.” Georgievski noted that by supporting him, the Bulgarian state supports every Bulgarian in North Macedonia. The pressure in North Macedonia is not ostentatious, he said. “The pressure is quiet, invisible. People have problems at work, get fired, and it is hard to prove why. My sentence is not a defeat, it proves that our struggle is real. It shows that we should keep speaking up, even louder than before, about the situation in our country,” he said. He noted that North Macedonia’s path to EU membership goes through human rights.

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The draft of a European Parliament (EP) report on North Macedonia’s progress on the path to EU membership is discussed in a Trud interview with Bulgarian MP Dimitar Gardev (There Is Such a People), who chairs the National Assembly Committee on European Affairs. The EP is to take a vote on the report on June 24. The vote was postponed two weeks ago at the request of the Bulgarian MEPs, who complained of irregularities, including a leak of parliamentary inside information and questionable changes in the draft report.

Gardev says in the interview that the people of North Macedonia should blame their Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski for “ruining and utterly compromising the whole report” as it emerged that North Macedonia, an EU candidate country, had held unregulated bilateral negotiations with the chief rapporteur. “They had 30 meetings,” Gardev said. He recalled a recent declaration of the Bulgarian National Assembly, which said that Bulgaria supports the negotiating framework between the EU and North Macedonia the way it has been approved by all EU member states and North Macedonia itself. The framework clearly defines the steps which Skopje needs to take in aligning its legislation with EU law before the negotiation chapters begin to be opened. One of the steps is to inscribe the Bulgarians in North Macedonia into the country’s Constitution as “a state-forming people.” The European consensus is at the core of relations in the EU, and if the arrangement is such big trouble to Prime Minister Mickoski, he should consider withdrawing Skopje’s bid for EU membership, Gardev suggests.

Discussing the idea that European Council President Antonio Costa or Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos could mediate between Sofia and Skopje to resolve their dispute, Gardev says it is an invented dispute. Bulgaria has not raised any conditions beyond the negotiating framework. “How can they function as mediators if they are a party to the process?” the MP wonders. He also gives his take on the possibility for North Macedonia’s President to talk with Bulgaria’s President or Prime Minister during the forthcoming NATO Summit in The Hague. Gardev comments that a separate meeting between an EU candidate country and an EU member state may only take place in the framework of the EU. He notes that Skopje is negotiating with Brussels, not with Sofia, and Brussels is carrying out the decisions of the Council.

ISRAEL-IRAN

Ekaterina Gluhova, a Bulgarian who has just been evacuated from Israel, said on the morning talk show of BNT1: “I will remember Israel for the festival which took us there in the first place. There were many wonderful moments, with all that beauty and cultural life. I will try to push the more negative part to the back of my mind, although this will be very hard to do.” Gluhova also said: “My colleagues and I are still in a state of shock. We can’t believe we are here now.”

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The Israeli strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, which began on June 13, are not an isolated development but the result of many years of mounting tensions and a series of provocations, former Bulgarian foreign minister Nickolay Mladenov writes in a Facebook post, quoted in 24 Chasa. According to Mladenov, the strikes were preceded by Iranian missile attacks on Israel and disturbing disclosures by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) about undeclared enriched uranium. Serious suspicions that Iran was advancing with its military nuclear programme exacerbated regional fears and insecurity.

Today, the conflict is set to destabilize the entire Middle East, Mladenov goes on to say. Economic consequences are already felt, with oil prices rising further and global trade facing the prospect of new shocks. Although Iran has no interest in blocking the Persian Gulf (a step that would upset the countries in the region and neutral partners such as China and India), the risk of growing economic instability remains real. The greatest risk is the possible involvement of the United States in the war. This can materialize if US military facilities come under direct attack. The crisis has global dimensions, Mladenov says. Iran is a key military partner to Russia in the Ukraine conflict as it supplies drones and missiles for use in combat. The Israeli strikes on Iranian military infrastructure could weaken the logistic chain, and it would be difficult for Moscow to offset it quickly.

It is in the best interests of the whole world to see the current conflict between Israel and Iran contained promptly. Iran should provide unambivalent guarantees that it is giving up any ambition to develop nuclear weapons, by accepting complete and transparent verification from the IAEA. Otherwise, any attempt at de-escalation will be ineffective, Mladenov concludes.