site.btaMedia Review: August 22

WATER SHORTAGES

24 Chasa leads with a story about water shortages.

Within weeks, the government should establish a National Water Board to coordinate ministries and other institutions in urgently addressing the water crisis. This was one of seven measures adopted by the parliamentary Environment and Water Committee in an emergency session. The proposal was introduced by MPs from the ruling majority — GERB-SDS, BSP, ITN — as well as from DPS “New Beginning,” whose leader Delyan Peevski floated the idea two days earlier.

During the debates it became clear that water levels in reservoirs are sufficient; the problem lies elsewhere: 55% of Bulgaria’s drinking water supply depends on pumping stations and distribution networks, which suffer massive losses. In Pleven’s “Druzhba” neighborhood, for example, leakage reaches 80%.

The new board will coordinate the actions of ministries and agencies, including the Regional Development, Environment, Agriculture, and Energy ministries, the National Association of Municipalities, and the Bulgarian Development Bank (BDB). Within two months, its actions are expected to deliver results, starting with cleaning and rehabilitating all water sources, reservoirs, and supply pipelines, as well as drilling for new water sources.

BDB’s involvement was explained by the need for urgent financing beyond the state budget. MP Iskra Mihaylova (DPS–New Beginning), one of the sponsors, said the measure addresses concerns by Environment Minister Manol Genov that funding is lacking: “We are opening the door to negotiations and agreements for another financial instrument, beyond the budget, which has not been used — the Bulgarian Development Bank. It has restrictions, but also significant opportunities.”

Opposition MPs from PP–DB countered that the board will achieve nothing, pointing out that a High Consultative Water Council already exists, but its recommendations have gone largely unimplemented. GERB-SDS and DPS representatives fired back, accusing PP–DB of neglecting the water issue during their time in power.

Currently, some 286,000 people are officially on water rationing, though the number is likely higher, as daily outages are reported due to poor water quality and contamination with substances like manganese and arsenic. BSP’s Kiril Dobrev argued that water shortages are not nationwide, but warned of widespread misuse — with some households irrigating lawns or gardens illegally without paying. “For long-term solutions, we’ll need new reservoirs and pipeline replacement, but that takes years and money. We must get used to the idea that water and electricity are expensive resources,” he said.

Regional Development Minister Ivan Ivanov announced that ministry experts and representatives of the state-owned Water and Sewer Holding are already in Pleven to assist the local crisis task force, as ordered by Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov. Immediate measures include mapping the municipality’s most vulnerable water infrastructure points for urgent rehabilitation, cleaning water sources nationwide, and cracking down on unauthorized use. Municipalities have been urged to prioritize drinking water use.

Ivanov noted that the main causes of shortages include drying or low-yield underground water sources, reduced rainfall, increased consumption, heavily deteriorated networks — especially in smaller towns — and widespread illegal connections.

Environment Minister Manol Genov confirmed that reservoirs are not the issue: those designated for household water are filled to an average of 65.48%, more than last year. Still, he cautioned that this is no reason for complacency. Construction of a new reservoir at Cherni Osam, he added, would require significant time and money.

***

Duma: Experts from the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works, together with representatives of “Bulgarian Water and Sewer Holding” EAD, will arrive in the northern city of Pleven, which has been plagued by water supply disruptions, starting Friday. They will assist the local authorities and take part in inspecting the Municipality’s water supply network in order to identify critical points, with the goal of beginning immediate rehabilitation of the infrastructure.

This was announced by Regional Development and Public Works Minister Ivan Ivanov during today’s emergency meeting of the Parliamentary Committee on Environment and Water. The Committee discussed a draft resolution of the National Assembly aimed at tackling the water shortage in this country.

***

Ruling authorities are not trying to solve the water shortage problems, but rather provoking water crises – the more severe, the better – only to later spend hundreds of millions of leva to “resolve” them. This is what Dimitar Kumanov from the “Balkanka” Association said in an interview for the program “Right Now with Georgi Donkov.”

According to him, the main issue is the outrageous mismanagement of water resources in Bulgaria, for which several ministries and most municipalities bear responsibility, as they do nothing to even stop water theft.

“The commission from water infrastructure projects is about 40% of their value. Usually, this money goes back somewhere along the contracting chain, but often it doesn’t even reach the mayors of the respective municipalities. Instead, it is taken directly by the person who picked up the phone and ordered which company should be the contractor. I call this ‘telephone corruption.’

I’ll give an example with the Ministry of Environment and Water (MOEW): when someone starts doing something that breaks the law, a call is made to the minister with the words, ‘Tomorrow, one of my people will come to you, and you must give him permission.’ Laws don’t matter. And if that person’s issue isn’t resolved, the minister ceases to be a minister,” the expert explained.

Kumanov believes this is the main reason why the authorities are pushing so hard to build the “Cherni Osam” dam, which is projected to cost at least 1 billion leva.

“In Pleven, they should first stop the thefts from the water supply network. After that, they need to repair the pipelines to reduce losses. At the same time, a temporary solution could be to locate deeper underground water sources. In my view, the best option would be to restore the water supply system from the ‘Sopot’ dam, because that can be done relatively quickly – in about a year. Only after all this, if it is still deemed necessary, should the construction of the ‘Cherni Osam’ dam begin,” Kumanov concluded.

POLICE - FALSE POSITIVE DRUG TESTS

Mediapool runs a story about the ongoing problem of false positive field drug tests administered by traffic police.

Interior Minister Daniel Mitov has ordered an investigation into why police officers continue to routinely arrest drivers who test positive for drugs on roadside tests, even when the results are not final and are often false positives. This practice has been ongoing for years, with numerous cases in which drivers were sanctioned and detained, only to later have their blood tests come back negative.

Mitov, however, did not announce the probe through the Interior Ministry’s official channels. Instead, news of it emerged in a Facebook exchange under a post by 24 Chasa director Danka Vasileva. In her comment, she wrote:

"You are certainly not one of those ministers with a brainwashed police mindset. That’s why I wonder – isn’t it finally time to change the regulation, decree, or unwritten rule that requires all drivers who test positive in field drug checks to be automatically detained for 24 hours? Hundreds of completely innocent people have already suffered from this police arbitrariness."

In response, Mitov said the probe was prompted by “numerous signals from citizens regarding a serious number of so-called ‘false positive results’ from the tests, where subsequent blood analysis shows no illegal substances but rather legal medications.”

He added: “In my personal opinion, when citizens agree or explicitly request to provide blood samples for drug testing, there is no need to apply the police measure of 24-hour detention.”

The problem has been unresolved for years. The Interior Ministry has taken no steps to fix it. On the contrary, police officers themselves protested when there was an attempt to test them with the same roadside kits.

Former caretaker interior minister Atanas Ilkov even insisted in Parliament that false positives did not exist. His position was that the ministry’s tests were “highly sensitive,” which he said was a good thing since they “detect all kinds of substances.” That may be true, but among the detected substances are entirely legal medications — including over-the-counter flu remedies.

Another issue is the backlog of blood test results. Samples are processed by only four laboratories (at the Interior Ministry Hospital, the Institute of Criminology, and two military hospitals in Sofia and Varna). As a result, drivers often wait months for results. This means that commercial drivers, for instance, can lose their licenses, vehicles, and livelihoods while waiting.

Despite repeated promises, the problem has dragged on for years. Lawyer Silvia Petkova, who has handled many such cases, told Nova TV that even laboratory results have been unreliable due to a lack of skilled staff and proper equipment.

Mitov stressed that whether or not an arrest is made, police officers are legally obliged to accompany drivers for blood sampling. “The very fact of forced escort limits their right to free movement, and detention is the only relevant measure,” he wrote. He added that for a real solution, competent Interior Ministry directorates must provide guidance to officers.

As for the promised four additional laboratories that were supposed to relieve the current system, they remain only in the planning stage.

ECONOMY – BULGARIAN STATE RAILWAYS

NOVA TV: The Council of Ministers has instructed the Ministry of Transport and Communications to launch an official procedure for selecting new operators of passenger rail services, said Minister Grozdan Karadzhov. The topic was discussed by Petar Bunev, President of the Railway Transport Workers Union, and Martin Yanev from the Green Transport Cluster on NOVA TV.

“A procedure will be announced, divided into three lots. One larger – the western lot, comprising 75% of the services, and two smaller ones – with 15% and 11% of the trains. They will be put up for tender. The tender will be open to anyone wishing to participate. The parameters are already set. Rolling stock will be provided to us. The lines are state-owned, the trains are state-owned,” explained Petar Bunev.

According to Martin Yanev of the "Green Transport Cluster," the possibility of private operators taking over part of the services is real, although limited by practice and conditions.

Seventy-five percent is for the western region. That is intended for an operator who already has experience in passenger transport. In Bulgaria, there is only one such operator. So it is clear that this 75% will remain with BDZ,” Yanev pointed out.

He also raised the question of the future of the railway administration:
“For me, the open question remains – what happens with the administration in Sofia? Will they be divided? Will they remain only within the state operator?”

The trade union does not really believe that there will be genuine competition for the smaller lots. 

“For the two small lots, no experience is required. Experience is required only for the large lot,” Bunev stated.

Another key issue concerns the costs of maintaining the new rolling stock.
“With this division, the question arises of who will pay for its maintenance,” he said, adding that the sum is around EUR 60 million. “Is this included in the subsidy or not?” Bunev asked.

“Under the Recovery Plan, the new trains currently being delivered come with 15 years of maintenance by the manufacturer,” Yanev clarified.

Both experts agreed that the changes bring more questions than answers.

HOME SCENE

The incident where an 18-year-old Nikola Burgazliev ran over five people in the Sunny Beach resort continues to be in the media spotlight.

Bulgarian National TV: The Burgas Court will review the case. The District Prosecutor’s Office has charged him with causing medium bodily injury, and the court initially released him under house arrest. Protests are being organized in Sofia and Burgas in front of the courthouses, with demonstrators demanding a fair trial. The 35-year-old woman who was struck in the incident remains in critical condition, with her health deteriorating in recent days. Doctors are also fighting to save the life of her four-year-old son. Acting Prosecutor General Borislav Sarafov has ordered the investigation to be taken over by the National Investigation Service, citing its legal complexity. Burgazliev’s parents are police officers.

Bulgarian National Radio: Protests are taking place in front of the courthouses in Burgas, Plovdiv, and Sofia, organized by the association “Angels on the Road”, in support of the victims of the ATV incident in Sunny Beach. The news is also extensively covered by bTV and other major media outlets. 

WASTE RECYCLING 

Capital leads with a story about waste collection and recycling. 

When in June the municipality of Gotse Delchev (Southwest Bulgaria) announced that it was introducing a new waste collection fee method using chips on bins, the news quickly drew attention. The reason was that the municipality was on its way to becoming one of the first, if not the very first, in the country to change the way the fee is calculated. At present, the charge is most often based on the property’s tax valuation — a method that distorts payments and leads to unfair amounts regardless of how many people live in a dwelling or how much waste they actually produce. What made the case even more interesting was that while many other municipalities had been “waiting it out” for years, the administration in Gotse Delchev had been preparing for the reform since 2022.

Starting in 2026, waste fees will be calculated based on the number of residents, containers, or bags, with each municipality free to choose the most suitable option. The introduction of this new methodology has been discussed for more than a decade but postponed repeatedly for various reasons. Now, the National Association of Municipalities in the Republic of Bulgaria (NAMRB) told Capital that the process is actively moving forward at the local level, although it is still unclear which calculation basis will be most widely adopted. While some municipalities are ahead of schedule, others are facing significant problems.

According to NAMRB, municipalities are making every effort to implement the reform effectively and on time, but success requires complex measures, the most important of which is expanding separate waste collection systems. Once municipalities begin charging fees based on the amount of waste, payments will apply only to waste thrown into the general (gray) bins and for cleaning public spaces. Separately collected household waste deposited in the designated colored containers will not be subject to the household waste fee (HWF), since such waste is a resource that generates revenue when recycled, the association explains. Therefore, the key and most difficult task for municipalities is to expand systems for the separate collection of common waste streams as well as to establish systems for food and biodegradable waste.

Another difficulty arises from the fact that municipalities cannot independently finance the creation or expansion of separate waste collection systems. By law, these systems are funded and managed by waste recovery organizations, NAMRB points out. Their activity is financed by license fees and/or product charges and is regulated by central authorities. Local governments, in practice, do not manage separate waste collection — even though it is crucial for reducing the volume of waste ending up in general bins.

For this reason, municipalities propose amendments to the Waste Management Act to broaden the scope of packaging waste collection systems to cover the entire country and to make them mandatory for all settlements with more than 1,000 inhabitants. Another key proposal is to allow municipalities to receive partial funding from product charge revenues whenever they want to independently build or expand systems for the separate collection of widely generated waste. “On both topics we have good communication with the Ministry of Environment, we have proposed specific legal texts, and we are in the process of discussing them,” NAMRB told Capital.

There are already good examples. Many municipalities are actively reforming their systems. Gotse Delchev, where more than 70% of residents want the fee to be based on the volume of waste, is just one case. The municipality has already started work on the changes, aiming to chip all containers. For single-family houses, 110-liter bins have already been distributed. When the bin is full, or when residents decide to empty it, they leave it in front of their homes. Garbage trucks will be equipped with cameras to record the chip, and the data will be sent to the municipality. It remains to be determined how much collecting and processing one ton of waste will cost.

Since the end of July, Pomorie has also been working on a project introducing a “pay-as-you-throw” system. For now, the pilot area covers only the Svoboda neighborhood. Households there have received 40-liter bags with labels linking them to a specific address. Once a week, residents leave the bags in front of their entrances. Special trucks equipped with scanners collect the bags and record in real time how many each household has disposed of. The municipality explains that the traditional gray bins will be completely removed from the neighborhood, with household waste disposal possible only through the new bags. This is the only waste subject to fees — the less of it, the lower the charges. The gray bags are only for non-recyclable waste, while new containers have been installed for recyclable materials such as paper, plastic, metal, glass, and also for food and biodegradable waste.

In July, the Sofia neighborhood of Nadezhda 1 became the first in the capital where waste collection is carried out only through closed and controlled “green islands.” These are enclosed areas with regulated access containing containers for plastics, glass, paper, food waste, and mixed waste. Sofia already has more than 70 such “green islands” in neighborhoods including Nadezhda, Ovcha Kupel, and Ilinden. The goal is not only to increase recycling rates but also to reduce litter and the mess of overflowing or scattered containers. The municipality notes that building “green islands” is a priority in high-rise districts. The idea seems promising, though its success depends on execution and residents’ willingness to cooperate, especially since in panel housing estates dumping garbage on the street is far from uncommon.

Meanwhile, Stara Zagora is set to become the first city where waste collection will be done entirely with a fully electric truck producing zero emissions.

Still, not all municipalities are ready. Asked whether some are seeking another postponement of the methodology scheduled to take effect on January 1, NAMRB did not give a direct answer. Instead, it stressed that the process requires stages, analysis, monitoring, and coordination at all levels.

“A transitional period is necessary for the gradual introduction of the new calculation bases — across municipalities and settlements — linked to targeted funding from local, national, and European sources to complete municipal systems,” the association said. Whether this means another postponement is needed remains unclear. But NAMRB emphasized that, based on the intensive work of the past two years and analysis of good practices in other EU member states, it is evident that Bulgaria must also begin revising the bases written into the Local Taxes and Fees Act and the obligation to introduce the “polluter pays” principle everywhere.

“As seen in the examples of other member states, not a single one has implemented this principle nationwide,” the municipalities noted — which could be interpreted as a hint for a grace period. 

ARTIFICIAL INTELLGIENCE

Trud’s main story is about the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI).

Meta has begun rolling out a new artificial intelligence tool that automatically translates videos and synchronizes the speakers’ lip movements. The feature is currently available for short vertical videos (Reels) on Facebook and Instagram and aims to help creators reach wider audiences.

For now, the tool supports translation between English and Spanish. Users can activate it through the “Voice translation with Meta AI” option in the posting menu. The AI not only translates the content but also adapts voices to match the original tone, making them sound more natural.

Before publishing, creators can preview the result and enable lip synchronization. Once uploaded, the system automatically displays the translated version to viewers who prefer that language. For transparency, a label indicates that the video has been translated with AI.

The new feature is available to Instagram users with public profiles, as well as Facebook creators with audiences of several thousand followers. According to The Verge, this is only the first step, and Meta plans to expand to more language combinations in the future.

Meanwhile, Anthropic has introduced a new feature to its Claude AI chatbot that allows it to interrupt conversations deemed “harmful or offensive.” The developer says the measure will be applied only in extreme cases and is already available in the Opus 4 and 4.1 models. The main goal is to protect both the model and users from interactions that cause significant discomfort.

Once a dialogue is terminated, the user cannot continue in the same chat but may start a new one. Anthropic stresses that such cases will remain rare, even for sensitive or controversial topics.

During testing, Claude showed a clear tendency to refuse participation in generating harmful content — from violence and terrorism to sexually explicit material involving minors.

Interestingly, the model has been trained not to end conversations if a user shows intent to self-harm or cause imminent harm. In such situations, Claude connects with Throughline — an online crisis support service — to help generate appropriate and supportive responses related to mental health. 

WORLD

Mediapool leads with a story about the stance of US President Donald Trump in view of the war Russia is waging against Ukraine.

Donald Trump compared Ukraine’s situation to that of a sports team that defends well but cannot attack. In such a case, victory is impossible, Trump said, blaming his predecessor [former US President 2021-2025] Joe Biden for not allowing Ukraine to strike Russian territory.

Just hours after Russia launched a record attack — 574 drones and 40 ballistic missiles, the highest number since mid-July — Trump stated that Ukraine must begin to “attack the aggressor country.”

Trump continues to send mixed signals. Earlier, White House officials reported that he intends to let Russia and Ukraine organize a meeting between their leaders on their own, without taking a direct role for now.

At the same time, Russia’s Foreign minister warned that Moscow must have an effective veto over any measures supporting Ukraine, undermining last week’s peace efforts.