site.btaMedia Review: July 11

POLITICS

Mediapool.bg quotes Continue the Change (CC) Co-Chair Assen Vassilev who said: "July 8 passed [the day when the final decision was taken for Bulgaria's accession to the euro area]. From now on we are a clear opposition. We have clearly stated that this government is harmful for Bulgaria, and we will support votes of no confidence that do not distance Bulgaria from Europe." Vassilev emphasized that he was talking only on behalf of CC and not on behalf of their coalition partners Democratic Bulgaria (DB). He added: "We are a group where every MP has the right to a personal opinion and is not ordered what to do from above."

Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov told reporters that while he is not surprised by CC's decision, he is saddened by it. He predicted that the upcoming fourth motion of no confidence will also fail and will then be followed by a fifth and a sixth one.

Mediapool also quotes CC MP Vasil Pandov, who called the Zhelyazkov's Cabinet crooked. He listed possible reasons for future motions, such as corruption and the lack of justice in Bulgaria. He pointed to the low salaries of young healthcare workers and to steep university fees, which he reported prevent some 40,000 people from acquiring higher education, as examples of failures of the current government.

Pandov also commented on the arrest of the Mayor of Varna, Blagomir Kotsev, saying: "The government has started to place members of the opposition under arrest. The Mayor's detention began with a search of his residence by 15 officers of the Counter-Corruption Commission, which was carried out in the presence of his wife and two children. For hours she was separated from the baby she was nursing." Pandov condemned the government for sowing fear among the public with a message that warns: "This could happen to you too."

Trud writes that on Friday the Sofia City Court will consider the pre-trial detention of the Mayor. The state prosecution will ask for his permanent detention. Two municipal councillors from CC, Yordan Kateliev and Nikolay Stefanov, have also been detained, as well as Ivaylo Marinov, a partner in the company that won the public procurement. A different company used to win that procurement in the past. The owner of this company filed a blackmail report against the Mayor. He and the two councillors allegedly demanded 15% of a procurement for food for social services for children worth more than BGN 1.5 million.

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Dnevnik.bg quotes Blagomir Kotsev's sister, Bilyana Kotseva, who addressed a rally in support of her brother in Varna, on the Black Sea. Kotseva pointed to GERB leader Boyko Borissov, Movement for Rights and Freedoms - New Beginning leader Delyan Peevski, and former Varna deputy mayor Dian Ivanov as the people behind Kotsev's arrest. Dnevnik describes Ivanov as a person who until recently was known as a close friend of Kotsev. The article continues: "After Kotsev's entry into politics, Dian Ivanov was by his side. First as regional governor (2022), Kotsev signed a contract with his [Ivanov's] law firm for legal services, and after the elections in the autumn of 2023, he [Kotsev] included him [Ivanov] as one of the closest deputies in his mayoral team. Ivanov surprisingly resigned in early May this year. Just two months later, he was named as the person who testified against Kotsev, information that has neither been officially confirmed nor denied."

Dnevnik quotes articles from 24 Chasa and BNT who suggest that Ivanov testified against Kotsev. BNT reported: "After parting ways with Kotsev, Dian Ivanov testified before the Counter-Corruption Commission and explained that he had participated in the blackmail of the owner of a catering company, Plamena Dimitrova, at the request of the mayor of Varna. The former deputy mayor confirmed to investigators that Dimitrova was subjected to unjust pressure to withdraw her application."

In a phone call with a reporter from Dnevnik, Ivanov stated that rumours about his testimony against Kotsev will discredit him and will cast a stain on him that will be difficult to clear.

Kotseva reported that in recent months and especially in May and June, her brother was under heavy pressure to leave CC and join Peevski's so-called New Beginning strategy.

The article points out that during Ivanov's term as deputy mayor, he repeatedly announced that the new mayor's team in Varna is preparing files and alerts to the prosecution service against former deputy mayors and directors who worked in the municipal administration at the time when it was managed by GERB. In a series of interviews, he also publicized evidence of abuses in the implementation of projects with EU funding by the team of the previous mayor of Varna, Ivan Portnih.

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An op-ed in Capital begins with a Boyko Borissov quote from 2006, when he as a mayor of Sofia said: "In Bulgaria nothing has been done to decentralize local government. The amount of the subsidy depends on the favour of the minister of finance. Obedient mayors get more money." The article then states that 3 years later, Borissov became prime minister and found out that "there is nothing better than obedient mayors". The text reads:

"All politics is local, the old wisdom goes. Reframed here, it sounds like this: in Bulgaria, all power rests on the local [power].

"This is especially important to keep in mind today, when a second mayor of a major Bulgarian city who is not part of the ruling majority has come under fire from the Counter-Corruption Commission. Varna Mayor Blagomir Kotsev of Continue the Change was arrested on corruption charges, two weeks after a raid in Sofia Municipality landed a deputy mayor from the same party in custody on the same charges.

"Is it possible that those accused in Sofia and Varna were involved in corruption schemes? Yes, it is possible.

"But there are an embarrassing number of alerts that what has happened is not any counteraction to corruption but a consolidation of the monopoly on it. There have been two strong parties in local government in Bulgaria for 15 years - GERB and the MRF [Movement for Rights and Freedoms]. The most significant change in this map occurred not when Continue the Change managed to win two of the largest cities in 2023, but two years later, when Delyan Peevski managed to 'seize' the mayorship from Ahmed Dogan and legitimize the New Beginning as a new force at the local level.

"In recent years, alerts of corruption in municipalities were so many that they could have drowned the authorities. Take this same municipality, Varna. For the 2020-2022 period, 65% of the contracts awarded by Ivan Portnih's administration went to single-candidate competitive biddings. This is such an alarming red flag for rigged biddings that auditors everywhere are obliged to flag it up in checks, and the European Commission has made it a specific requirement of the recovery fund money that Bulgaria reduce the percentage of single-candidate procurements. Not only does Bulgaria not do this, but in the last renegotiation of the Zhelyazkov cabinet, it postponed this requirement for another year.

"None of this has led the Counter-Corruption Commission to enter the Municipality of Varna or, God forbid, arrest Portnih. What's more, when the European Public Prosecutor's Office wanted to press charges against the former GERB mayor for apparent fraud on a European project, it was met with quiet resistance from local authorities, who did everything to delay the process, the European prosecutor told Capital."

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Trud and 24 Chasa quote CC-DB MP Yavor Bozhankov who told reporters on Friday morning that he is convinced that Vassilev wants to break up the CC-DB coalition. He added: "I believe that he wants to split this coalition, and I have the relevant arguments to say so. This worries me, because I believe that the coalition must remain whole. Anything else would be a gift to our opponents." On November 28, 2024, the CC party demanded the resignations of MPs Bozhankov and Daniel Lorer, after they were the only CC members who did not vote in favour of the candidate of There Is Such a People, Silvi Kirilov, for Parliament Chair. Later in the day, DB said in a Facebook post that they are firmly against the exclusion of Lorer and Bozhankov from the CC-DB parliamentary group over the two MPs' vote for National Assembly Chair.

ENERGY

Mediapool reports that rumours of large sums of cash found during the Counter-Corruption Commission's raids, part of the BOTAS probe, were released in a controlled manner by investigators on Thursday.

The Bulgarian National Television (BNT), citing unofficial information, reported that EUR 80,000 in cash was found at the home of former energy minister Rossen Hristov. The origin of this money has to be explained to the Counter-Corruption Commission. Hristov was caretaker minister at the time when Bulgaria signed an interconnection agreement with the Turkish energy giant BOTAS.

BNT and bTV report that BGN 100,000 in cash was found in the home of the former head of Bulgargaz, Deniza Slateva. The origin of that sum must also be explained to the Commission.

On Thursday, Hristov, accompanied by a lawyer, appeared for questioning before the Commission. When asked whether EUR 80,000 was actually found in his home, he responded that he had been asked to avoid commenting the ongoing case.

BNT claims that the searches were launched because of operational information that an attempt was being made to conceal sensitive information related to the contract with BOTAS. According to Mediapool, "This sounds absurd because the contract was signed almost two years ago and even became the subject of a parliamentary inquiry." The article continues: "It is unclear why prosecutors and agents of the Counter-Corruption Commission believe that after so much time and with a case already opened, potential suspects would keep incriminating 'objects and items' in their offices and homes."

The phones and electronic devices seized during the searches were used to analyse specific communications stored in them, concerning sensitive information about the contract with the Turkish company.

CC Co-Chair Vassilev alleged double standards, as he referred to the case of the arrested Mayor of Varna, while no one has been detained in the BOTAS case despite proven damage to Bulgaria.

On January 3, 2023, the Bulgarian state-owed natural gas supplier Bulgargaz and Turkish energy company BOTAS signed an interconnection agreement, under which the Bulgarian side booked capacity of 106.4 GWh/day on the Turkish LNG regasification terminals and agreed to pay for this BGN 1 million (EUR 512,000) daily for a period ending in 2035. At present, Bulgargaz does not import gas under the agreement with BOTAS, and in early May its arrears to the Turkish company approximated BGN 300 million. If the 13-year take-or-pay agreement is rescinded, the Bulgarian company will be liable for close to BGN 3 billion in damages.

In December 2023, the MPs established an ad hoc committee of inquiry to look into the matter. On April 11, 2024, the committee decided to refer the matter to the prosecution service.

The Bulgarian company stopped paying at the end of June 2024 and since then, it has been unsuccessfully trying to renegotiate the terms and reduce the 1.8 bcm per year reserved and the fees for using the network, which are very high and make the gas supplied under this contract practically unsellable.

At the end of March 2025, Minister of Energy Zhecho Stankov reported that Bulgargaz owed Turkiye nearly BGN 250 million.

LABOUR

An article in Capital based on research conducted by the Roma Foundation For Europe reports that while businesses in Bulgaria are looking to distant destinations to cope with the labour shortage, the Roma minority remains a neglected and untapped source of labour resources in the country. The active inclusion of Roma in the labour market not only has the potential to alleviate labour shortages but would also add EUR 1.95 billion a year to the size of the economy, as well as around EUR 195 million in tax revenues, the NGO's research shows. The article reports: "Missed opportunities and productivity at EU level are significant. Over the next 15 years, nearly 2 million workers will leave the EU labour market every year. At the same time, millions of Roma – the youngest demographic group in Europe – are excluded from economic life. According to the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, only 43% of Roma aged 20 to 64 are in work, and the figure is even lower among Roma women at just 28%. Roma youth are disproportionately excluded from the workforce: 56% of Roma aged 15 to 24 do not participate in any form of employment, education or training – almost five times the EU average of 11.7%."