site.btaMedia Review: July 30

ECONOMY & HEALTH

Municipal Bank sent a notice of termination of its contract with Sofia Municipality a week after Sofia Mayor Vasil Terziev’s proposal for the Municipal Council to greenlight a change of the bank servicing the Municipality was nipped in the bud, MediaPool.bg reports.

The website says it has obtained a copy of Municipal Bank’s letter to the local government, which reads that the possible replacement of the financial institution servicing Sofia Municipality has acquired “clear political overtones and has been used in the context of strong political confrontation”. “As a result, Municipal Bank AD has become the target of speculation and manipulative statements in the public domain, which have affected the bank’s prestige and have unfoundedly called into question its financial stability and reputation built over the course of decades,” the letter reads. It notes that the bank has decided to sever its relations with Sofia Municipality “guided by the principles of transparency, institutional integrity, and responsibility to our shareholders, depositors and clients”.

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Government control over profiteering in connection with the euro changeover in Bulgaria on January 1, 2026, will be in place until August 8, 2026, not until the end of next year, as proposed initially, Duma says on page one, covering a decision of the National Assembly Committee on Budget and Finance. The committee approved amendments to the Introduction of the Euro in the Republic of Bulgaria Act on second reading. The committee extended until October 8, 2025, the deadline for businesses to align their activities with all requirements related to the planned adoption of the euro in Bulgaria, including dual-currency price displays (in leva and euro), cash register adjustments and a requirement for large retailers to publish daily updates of their end selling prices.

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“How Bulgaria’s Energy Sector Coped amid the Heat,” caps an analysis in Trud, based on data from Energy-charts.info. The author, Boyan Rashev, says that last week was the hottest so far this summer, and the Bulgarian electricity system had to do without one of the two operational reactors of the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant. He says that last week, Bulgarian power plants produced and supplied 660 GWh of electricity, while domestic consumption amounted to 688 GWh, meaning that net imports were 28 GWh. Practically all Southeastern Europe was a net importer of electricity last week, and this time Bulgaria did not play its typical role as a “last-instance exporter” in the region.

Weekly consumption of electricity in Bulgaria was high by summer standards but was only a fraction of what is normally consumed in the winter, the analysis shows. Solar power plants supplied 36% of the electricity consumed during the extremely hot week, making them the most important source during the reporting period, which, according to Rashev, makes perfect sense. Batteries already play a visible role in meeting peak demand. Large hydroelectric power plants functioned as usual, helping to meet peak demand in the morning and particularly in the evening. Large thermal power plants (TPPs) fired by brown coal supplied almost the same share of electricity (24%) as the only nuclear reactor (25%) functioning at Kozloduy during the week. TPPs closely followed the electricity consumption curve and price fluctuations but played a limited role over the weekend. On the hottest evenings, large TPPs supplied the largest share of electricity.

Rashev says the most important observation is that TPP AES Galabovo, a coal-fired project in the southern region of Stara Zagora, plays a crucial role in balancing and regulating the national electricity system. Like other TPPs, AES Galabovo operates on brown coal and is designed to function as a baseload facility, but it is the most manoeuvrable of all and the only one which can run on natural gas. Its contract with the National Electricity Company (NEK) expires in less than a year, in May 2026. After that, it will come out on the free market, where it will face costly carbon emission allowances and will be forced to shut down just like the other American power plant in Bulgaria, ContourGlobal Maritsa East 3. The likely closure of AES Galabovo is unacceptable as it plays a critical role all year round, Rashev argues. “I wonder what the government is doing to prevent that,” he says.

He notes in conclusion that the national electricity system was not particularly stressed amid the extremely hot weather last week, but still, it relied heavily on imports beyond the sunny part of the day. On top of that, a massive issue is looming on the horizon, which requires the Bulgarian government, again, to seek a solution at variance with the EU drive to close coal-fired power plants. “What do you think, will this government manage?” the author asks.

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Ophthalmologists have warned of a “myopia pandemic” among children due to long hours of staring at telephone and computer screens, Trud says in its main story. Screens can cause dryness in the eyes and increase the risk of nearsightedness. It is recommended that kids take a break from using such devices every 20 minutes and spend time looking into the distance, said Alexander Oskar, head of the Eye Clinic at Sofia’s Alexandrovska Hospital. Doctors say digital devices should not be used in complete darkness, according to the daily. They also say that the blue light from screens upsets the secretion of melatonin and reduces the quality and the duration of sleep.

POLITICS

“The Ivancheva saga has ended,” 24 Chasa announces, describing the former mayor of Sofia’s Mladost Borough as the public official who has served “the most severe sentence for corruption”. Dessislava Ivancheva was granted a presidential pardon by Vice President Iliana Iotova and was released from the women’s prison in Sliven on Tuesday, 10 months before the expiry of her six-year term. “Mommy, I’m coming home. I will seek redress,” were the first words she spoke at large, the daily reports. It recalls that Ivancheva was jailed for demanding and receiving a EUR 75,000 bribe from a construction entrepreneur. The prison sentence of former deputy Mladost mayor Bilyana Petrova was commuted earlier on grounds of poor health, and she was released in August 2024.

Ivancheva and Petrova were interviewed in the studio of bTV on Wednesday morning. Ivancheva said her struggle lasted seven years, and as a convict, she spent three years under high security conditions. “Things will be exposed the way they really were, sooner or later,” the former mayor commented, adding: “They made us look as if we were the biggest monsters.” According to Petrova, the people behind their convictions were running an errand, and benefited from it career-wise.

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Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Innovation and Growth Tomislav Donchev said on Wednesday’s morning talk show of BNT1 (the main channel of Bulgarian National Television) that firefighting equipment is never enough. “Our [firefighting] aircraft is obviously insufficient, but I know of no country that has all the aircraft it needs. When there is a major fire, you always ask for help from your friends, your neighbours,” he said.

Donchev’s comment came after President Rumen Radev chastised the government last Friday for failing to secure enough firefighting aircraft for this summer.

The Deputy PM described the President as “self-avowed, distinct opposition competing with the other opposition parties”.

The Deputy PM thanked all people battling the ongoing wildfires, the firefighters, the military, “and I want to make special mention of the volunteers”. “This is something for which every person in good health who has spare time should consider taking some time to serve society,” he suggested.

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Culturologist and media expert Georgi Lozanov sees several signs of autocracy in Bulgaria. In a comment for Deutsche Welle, quoted by other news outlets, Lozanov says that one of the signs is persecution of the opposition, exemplified by the arrest of Varna Mayor Blagomir Kotsev. “Street support for the arrested mayor [...] naturally became a protest against a creeping dictatorship,” Lozanov comments. Second, he says, the stalled reform which was supposed to ensure the independence of the judicial system has left an aftertaste of autocracy. A third sign of autocracy is when the country’s governance becomes a family business, a job for a closely knit circle of people who tolerate corruption. “The Movement for Rights and Freedoms has perhaps contributed most to Bulgaria’s lasting notoriety for corruption,” says Lozanov, who is BTA’s LIK magazine editor.

ART ACADEMY EXPANSION

The second stage of the renovation and expansion of the National Academy of Art (NAA) building complex at the very heart of Sofia has sparked fears that the place will lose its authentic appearance, 24 Chasa says in its main story. People have commented on social media that the project will turn the city centre into an eyesore. Excavators have started demolishing the northwestern section of the complex to make room for an entirely new set of structures which will look different from the existing ones, the daily says. It will be dominated by glass and metal. The changes will not affect the main NAA building, a well-known red structure built in 1907.

The project was discussed and approved 20 years ago. The design, visualized in a frontpage photo in the paper, was created by the studio of architect Stefan Dobrev after a competitive bidding procedure. Dobrev’s studio has offices in Sofia and Paris, and its portfolio shows that in addition to Bulgaria, the architect has worked in Lithuania and South Korea, among other countries. This past spring, Dobrev was one of the candidates for Chief Architect of Sofia.

He told the daily that the undertaking is in full compliance with the construction permit issued back in 2012. It has been coordinated with all relevant institutions and has been subject to extensive public consultation. Dobrev said that the negative comments are coming from ill-intentioned people who want to smear him. According to the official presentation of the project, the future NAA complex in the historical centre of Sofia, together with surrounding landmarks – the St Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, the National Library, the University of Sofia, the National Assembly and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences – will form an imposing urban composition, “the Acropolis of Sofia”.