site.btaMedia Review: August 15

No single topic dominates Friday's news media.

POLITICS

Nova TV's morning show asked experts to comment on the effect on the parliamentary majority of the Government's proposal to sell over 4,400 State-owned properties across the country as a means to optimise State-owned property. The idea has provoked strong public reactions and sharp criticism from the opposition, the President and civil society organisations, who see it as a threat to the national interest and cultural heritage. Political scientist Assoc. Prof. Milen Lyubenov believes that every politician speaks to their voters. In his words, President Rumen Radev and Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) leader Delyan Peevski are campaigning with their positions on the issue - this is populism and demagoguery. The sale of State-owned property is a good idea as the sale will prevent the properties from falling into disrepair, but it needs to be rethought to gain greater pubilicity, Lyubenov argued. According to him, Peevski's position - against the sale of properties - is not in GERB's favour. Political PR specialist Nidal Algafari believes that most sales are exchanges between state institutions. "If a ministry no longer needs a particular property, it can be transferred to another agency through a deal. Sale is not the only option. We need to consider whether the properties should be a burden on the administration or given to those who can use them. It is not Peevski, but the leaders of the four parties in the majority who run the State and decide what happens. The properties should be sold at the best price for the State in a transparent manner, at auction," he believes.

ЕCONOMY

24 Chasa’s front-page article is about patient-general practitioner communication, as explained by the National Health Insurance Fund. Patients should know that they can get a short consultation over the phone but prescriptions and referrals to a specialist are provided only in person. GPs are obliged to educate patients on the effects of medicine and alcohol abuse.

Trud has an interview with Bulgarian Hospital Association Board member Andrey Markov, who comments on the draft legislative changes aimed at increasing the salaries of young medical professionals and Parliament reintroducing the financial limit on hospital services covered by the National Health Insurance Fund. According to him, the limit will affect patients most of all, especially since the limit is being reintroduced without an action plan and any clarity on how it will be implemented in practice, creating opportunity for bad practices. Patients will get turned away and forced to go from hospital to hospital until they can find one where the limit has not been reached, or they might be made to pay to be hospitalized. He recalls that before, the limit was found unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court. According to Markov, the salaries of young medical professionals should not be set by law, because that would be a step back from market economy to socialist times. 

***

Segabg.com has an interview with Nataliya Stancheva, a nurse at the Kozloduy Nuclear Power Plant (NPP), whom the plant tried to sue for BGN 500,000 after she made public the operation of an illegal medical facility at the plant, has not been paid for nine months. Her husband, who also works at the plant, has not been paid for six months. The reason for her interview is the latest human rights report from the US Department of State, which mentions her by name in the context of freedom of speech and the so-called SLAPP lawsuits [strategic lawsuits against public participation] being filed in Bulgaria. It transpires from Stancheva's interview that nothing has changed in her relationship with the NPP and that the situation is even getting worse. "They are forcing me to resign. I have not received a salary for nine months, even though I am at my workplace," Stancheva said. On Wednesday, Sega sent questions to the nuclear power plant on the subject, but so far there has been no response. Stancheva recalled that she is a protected person under the law on the protection of whistleblowers. She has turned to the Labour Inspectorate. "This supervisory body should force my employer to pay me the wages in question, provided that the inspectors who carried out the on-site inspection found me at my workplace. But the Labour Inspectorate in Vratsa said that this is a dispute between an employee and an employer and nothing more," she said. When asked why she has not filed a lawsuit, she replied that she no longer had the money for legal proceedings, which is perhaps the goal of the NPP by putting financial pressure on her. As for Stancheva's husband, he refused to undergo medical examinations at the NPP's illegal medical facility and has been denied access to his workplace for months, which is why he is not getting paid. According to her, criminal liability for non-payment of salaries could also be sought, as this is a crime against people's labour rights. The illegal medical facility is still operating undisturbed by all control authorities in the country, Stancheva said. The current Minister of Health is also aware of the case. The facility is used for the medical examinations of NPP employees, which they are required to undergo every year to determine whether they are fit to work in an ionising environment. It turns out that the NPP also controls the doctors who decide whether its employees can continue to work.

***

24 Chasa has 24 pages about Varna and the region on the occasion of Friday’s Day of Varna. The daily reports that the seaside city offers the second highest average salary in the country after Sofia, BGN 2,348 a month. Also, the panoramic road connecting Varna with the Golden Sands resort will finally be restored by building a flyover, following 20 years of waiting due to a landslide.

***

Trud’s front-page story reads that food in Bulgarian seaside restaurants is now nearly 25% more expensive, and the owners explain that this is their way of participating in the fight against obesity. On top of the 10-15% price increase at the beginning of the season, another 10% was added at its peak. Currently, the most popular lunch on Bulgarian beaches - sprat and beer - costs BGN 30. A portion of doner kebap is also BGN 30, and fresh juice costs BGN 25. Facebook is buzzing with comments from dissatisfied Bulgarians who have chosen to holiday at the Bulgarian seaside. A dinner for four at a restaurant around Varna costs around BGN 200, compared to some BGN 140 along the south coast. Restaurant owners explain the appreciation with the pay rise of their personnel, the return of the 20% VAT in the sector, and the higher prices for meat, fruit, vegetables, and other food products. 

***

Telegraph writes on its front page that as the entry in the eurozone approaches, Bulgarians are putting large sums of several thousand leva in banks instead of keeping them hidden at home. After January 1, 2026, exchanging large sums in BGN for EUR might require people to state the origin of the money.

On Bulgarian National Television's morning show, financial consultant Stoyne Vassilev commented on how ever more Bulgarians are putting their cash in banks. According to him, the main reason for that behaviour is the upcoming entry in the eurozone and easier currency conversion, because if one has money at home under the mattress, one has to go to the bank, convert it, and get foreign currency, which will again be difficult to store, whereas a bank deposit will be converted automatically and without any fees on January 1, 2026.

From January 1, 2026, all post offices in towns without bank branches will start exchanging BGN for EUR,  the head of the regional postal service, Svetoslav Godchev, told bTV's morning show from the post office in the northeastern village of Kolartsi. The exchange will have a daily limit of up to BGN 1,000 per person, and in 954 larger stations in the Bulgarian Posts network, up to BGN 10,000 per day can be exchanged with a prior request between 3 and 5 days in advance. A complete list of these stations is published on the Bulgarian Posts website. There will be 2,230 post offices in the country prepared for the new service, and over 3,000 postal employees will undergo training by the end of October. In view of the expected increased cash flow, additional security measures will be introduced at the sites, including high-resolution video surveillance and alarm systems. The post offices are working closely with the Ministry of the Interior, private security companies, and local municipalities, Godchev assured.

***

24 Chasa reports that as of August 15, Bulgarians can visit Vietnam for up to 45 days without a tourist visa. The visa-free tourist travel has been agreed between the two countries until August 14, 2028. Visits for other purposes still require a visa, which is issued by the Vietnamese Embassy in Sofia.

Duma reports that Bulgarian Socialist Party (BSP) leader and Deputy Prime Minister Atanas Zafirov Thursday met with the Ambassador of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam to Bulgaria, Nguyen Thi Minh Nguyet. Zafirov underscored that the bilateral ties have a stable 75-year history and that Vietnam is an important partner for Bulgaria. In his words, relations between the two countries have a solid foundation, but also need further encouragement and development. He explained that the BSP is keen on strengthening its contacts with countries in the Southeast Asian region. The Ambassador said that one of the main priorities of her term in office in Bulgaria is to take the partnership between the two countries to a new level. She expressed her gratitude to the BSP for its cooperation and good relations, which have contributed to good communication between our countries. She pointed to the introduction of a visa-free regime for Bulgarian tourists in Vietnam as a successful step towards strengthening cooperation between the two countries. She congratulated the leadership of the BSP on its development and participation in Government, the daily reports. Zafirov extended an invitation to a high-level Vietnamese delegation to visit Bulgaria.  “This will help strengthen not only the ties between our two parties, but also between Bulgaria and Vietnam,” he is quoted as saying.

***

Trud quotes Stoyko Kirovski, Chairman of the Union of Fruit and Vegetable Processors, as saying that the canning industry in Bulgaria may be coming to an end. "Soon, store shelves will offer pickled cucumbers from India, roasted peppers from North Macedonia, compotes from Greece, and jams from Egypt," he argued. The business of companies in the industry depends on raw materials, labour, and markets. There has been a significant decline in fruit and vegetable production in Bulgaria, which is why the industry imports raw materials from all over the world. When Bulgaria exported canned goods to Russia, the production of canned goods in Bulgaria was close to 900,000 tonnes per year, while now it is about 150,000 tonnes. "The population of Europe is three-fold larger than that of Russia, but the image of Bulgarian goods in Europe is very poor. Europeans do not like us very much," said Kirovski. Bulgarian processors export to Europe, but mainly under their own brands. "No one wants our brands there. We are raising the image of European brands, but no one knows us. We do not have the strength as an industry to promote ourselves in Europe," the expert said, underscoring that the quality of Bulgarian goods is very high.

***

On Bulgarian National Television's morning show, Ivaylo Galabov, Chairman of the Management Board of the Union of Poultry Breeders in Bulgaria, and Dimitar Zorov, Chairman of the Bulgarian Association of  Dairy Processors, commented on the agri-food chain bill and how its provisions will impact the sector if adopted in their current form. Zorov believes that the primary target of this bill is the consumer. "The aim is to regulate markups in the agro-food chain, especially the distortion in the last part - retail trade. Given that in the milk sector, an inspection carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture, through the authorities and the Bulgarian Food Safety Agency and the National Revenue Agency, has concluded that markups range from 50% to 100%. And the law states that the markup of a final retailer can be 20%," Zorov noted. According to Galabov, "before we focus on the percentages in the food chain, before we focus on the relationships in this food chain, we must ask ourselves as a society, as EU citizens, what laws we have laid down for the development of the food industry in general."

***

Bulgarian National Radio has an interview about the spread of sheep and goat pox with Prof. Doytcho Dimov, head of the Maritsa Sheep Breeding Association and lecturer in sheep and goat breeding at the Agrarian University in Plovdiv (South Central Bulgaria). He said that the pox is spreading at breakneck speed, and a quarter of the Marishka sheep breed in the country has already been wiped out, with 66% of the population in the Plovdiv Region eliminated. The only measure taken by the authorities thus far is the destruction of herds in which there is even a single infected animal, he noted. He calls for mass vaccination of sheep in the country, but there is still no initiative for such a campaign. The Bulgarian Food Safety Agency must propose this to the Minister of Agriculture, the expert stressed, calling it "the only salvation." The institutions have no idea what a fire is raging in sheep and goat farming, the expert commented. "These herds have been worked with for years. The risk of these genetic resources disappearing is very high," he warned. "The Bulgarian Food Safety Agency blindly follows the relevant EU regulation - they have chosen only one of the possible options: diagnosis, detection of the virus, euthanasia. The EU regulation itself allows for derogation from this measure for herds that are genetically valuable. This derogation can only be requested by the Agriculture and Food Ministry, and specific measures must be taken," the expert argued.

***

An analysis in Capital Weekly reads that instead of producing and exporting electricity, Bulgaria will increasingly import electricity during the winter. If during the warm months the country can secure electricity from solar power plants (30.5% of the energy produced in Bulgaria in July came from photovoltaics) and achieve good prices thanks to the increasingly large RES capacities and batteries, during the cold season the situation is completely different. The reason for the new market reality, despite the rapid introduction of energy storage systems, is the increasingly noticeable loss of competitiveness on the part of thermal power plants (TPPs), which are operating at minimum capacity due to high production costs. This creates the paradox that Bulgaria has the largest capacity in the region, but despite this, it is not being fully utilised. The more expensive coal-fired electricity was paid for and will continue to be paid for by domestic consumers, with the actual costs being compensated through the Security of the Electricity System Fund. This will continue to keep the power plants alive, even though in 2024 alone, the loss of the State-owned Maritsa East 2 TPP exceeded BGN 100 million and will likely continue to grow. Bulgaria's new role as a potential net importer of electricity has been confirmed several times by official data. It is becoming more profitable to import electricity Romania, Greece, Serbia, Turkiye, and North Macedonia.

***

Capital Weekly's topic is "The New Powers of AI Models". On eight pages, the weekly presents: the big eight in AI; the latest generative systems that OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic presented as having more powers and creating new opportunities for the future; and the opinion of Bulgarian tech companies on the latest OpenAI model.

HOME AFFAIRS

Online media report of a heavy road accident in Sofia in the early hours of Friday. A car crashed into the windows of a public transport bus, which was waiting at a red light at an intersection in downtown Sofia. The only passenger on the bus, a Syrian national in his 60s, was killed. The number of injured varies between media. According to Mediapool.bg, three people are in critical contidion: the bus driver and two girls who were travelling in the car, while the car driver and another passenger suffered minor injuries. The car was probably drifting and flew over to end up entering the bus through the windows, Emergency Assistance and Prevention Directorate head at Sofia Municipality Krassimir Dimitrov told bTV. The driver, a 21-year-old who obtained a driving licence just two weeks ago but already has six ticket fines for minor violations, tested negative for alcohol and drugs. The police are considering various causes of the accident, one of them speeding. 

Another traffic accident covered extensively is an ATV hitting pedestrians on the sidewalk and crashing into a hotel in the Sunny Beach resort on Thursday, injuring three children and three adults, all hospitalized. The identity of the 18-year-old driver is yet to be revealed, but Nova TV has information that both his parents work in the Interior Ministry's system. The father of one of the injured claims that details on the case are being covered up, and that the driver was not subjected to blood tests after the accident. The hotel's manager told Nova TV that the CCTV footage shows how the boy took a turn with the ATV, got on the sidewalk and hit the passing family and a hotel employee; he did not try to stop. 

***

Telegraph has an interview with Pirin National Park Rosen Balkanski, who says that the Park's management monitors tourists' behaviour with drones to ensure the ban on swimming in the mountain lakes is not violated.